Gass BY ^%OI 
Book d., 3 



/ 




/ 



BREATHINGS 



OF 



THE BETTER LIFE 



EDITED BY 



LUCY LARCOM. 




BOSTON : 
TICK NOR AND FIELDS. 
1867. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 
TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
Cambridge. 



PREFATORY. 



The purpose of this little book is to blend a 
few brief utterances of the elder saints with words 
spoken by some of the most earnest and reverent 
thinkers of our own day ; to echo, from the high 
grounds of faith and aspiration, voices that can- 
not fail to inspire the traveller struggling upward 
to a better life. 

The arrangement by which the leading thought 
of each selection is linked with some Scriptural 
passage, and portion of poem or hymn, has been 
made with reference to its social use. 

As a volume of extracts, it may win a welcome 
from those who cannot own many books, for bring- 
ing them into acquaintance with authors who, in 
ages and regions widely separated, have spoken 
clearly of the unselfish life which Jesus came to 
teach and to inspire ; of walking with God, and 



iv 



Prefatory. 



entering, by that Divine intimacy, into closer sym- 
pathy with human nature ; of obedience to Right 
and loving self-sacrifice, as the only principles of 
true living on earth, and of Heaven as the out- 
growth of those principles, the fulfilment of the 
noblest aims and yearnings of the soul. 

No regard has been paid to peculiarities of 
name or sect in making quotations. Whatever 
thought has seemed spiritually deepest, or of 
strongest practical force, has been written down 
as a sure word of prophecy from heart to heart. 
The endeavor has been, from passages expressing 
the right theory and sentiment of religion, to 
shape an every-day manual, answering to a gen- 
eral need ; one of those small books, filled with 
great thoughts, which are a real help to men and 
women, and which may accompany them to the 
workshop, the camp, or the sick-room, unobtrusive 
and restful as the presence of a friend. 

The soul, cramped among the petty vexations 
of earth, needs to keep its windows constantly 
open to the invigorating air of large and free 



Prefatory, 



v 



ideas : and what thought is so grand as that of 
an ever-present God, in whom all that is vital in 
humanity breathes and grows? The want of 
every human being is a wider expansion to re- 
ceive from Him, and to give of His ; fuller inspi- 
rations and outbreathings of that Spirit by which 
man is created anew in Him, a living soul. 

Religion is life inspired by Heavenly Love ; and 
life is something fresh and cheerful and vigorous. 
To forget self, to keep the heart buoyant with the 
thought of God, and to pour forth this continual 
influx of spiritual health heavenward in praise, 
and earthward in streams of blessing, — this is 
the essence of human, saintly, and angelic joy ; 
the genuine Christ-life, the one life of the saved, 
on earth or in heaven. 

For the Christian must be filled with one spirit, 
guided by one standard throughout his whole ex- 
istence. The same refreshing breezes visit him 
while toiling through the Valley of Humiliation, 
or climbing the Delectable Mountains; resting 
in the land of Beulah, or passing through the 



vi 



Prefatory. 



Dark River made bright by the faces of shining 
ones leaning from the other side. In the falter- 
ings and the triumphs of his course, his need is 
the same : the air that strengthens him, the only 
air in which he can breathe freely, is the pure 
atmosphere of Light and Love that flows down to 
him from his Father's House, through the open 
gates of the Beautiful City, and over the Celestial 
Hills. 



CONTENTS. 



Pagb 

The Kingdom within 1 

The Open Eye and Ear • J 9 

Way of Access 5 1 

Life Eternal • ^9 

Shadows . 89 

The True Light I0 7 

Bearing the Cross • • • I2 7 

The New Commandment x 53 

Rest and Joy l 75 

Fulness of Life x 95 

The Illumined Gateway 233 

The Glory beyond . . . . • • 2 57 



THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 



How far from here to heaven? 

Not very far, my friend ; 
A single hearty step 

Will all thy journey end. 
Hold there ! where runnest thou ? 

Know heaven is in thee ! 
Seekest thou for God elsewhere? 

His face thou 'It never see. 

Angelus Silesius. 



THE KINGDOM WITHIN. 



" Know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand."^ 

Luke xxi. 31. 

I HAVE a power in my soul which enables 
me to perceive God : I am as certain as that 
I live that nothing is so near to me as God. 
He is nearer to me than I am to myself. It 
is part of His very essence that He should 

be nigh and present to me And a man is 

more blessed or less blessed in the same meas- 
ure as he is aware of the presence of God. 

Often, when I meditate on the Kingdom of 
God, I cannot speak for the greatness thereof. 
For the Kingdom of God, — what is it but 
God Himself with all His riches ? When the 
Kingdom of God is manifested in a soul, and 
she knows it, you need not to preach or to 



4 



Breathings of the Better Life, 



teach ; for that soul is taught of God, and 
assured of eternal life. He who knows and 
perceives how nigh God's Kingdom is, may say 
with Jacob : " Surely, the Lord is in this place, 
and I knew it not." God is in all things and 
places alike, and is ever alike ready to give 
Himself to us, in so far as we are able to re- 
ceive Him ; and he knows God aright who sees 
Him in all things. 

The Masters have set forth many questions in 
the schools, as to how it can be possible for the 
soul to know God. If my soul is to perceive God, 
it must be heavenly. It is not of God's severity 
that He requires much from man ; it is of his 
great kindness that He will have the soul to open 
herself wider, to be able to receive much, that 
He may bestow much upon her. Let no one 
think that it is hard to attain thereunto. Al- 
though it sounds hard, and is hard at first, as 
touching the forsaking and dying to all things, 
yet, when one has reached this state, no life 
can be easier or sweeter, or fuller of pleasures ; 



The Kingdom Within. 



for God is right diligent to be with us at all 
seasons, and to teach us, that He may bring us 
to Himself when we are like to go astray. None 
of us ever desired anything more ardently than 
God desires to bring men to the knowledge of 
Himself. 

God is ever ready, but we are very unready; 
God is nigh unto us, but we are far from Him ; 
God is within, but we are without ; God is at 
home, we are strangers. " God leadeth the right- 
eous by a narrow path into a broad highway, 
till they come unto a wide and open place"; 
that is, unto the true freedom of that spirit 
which hath become one spirit with God. God 
help us all to follow Him, that He may bring 
us unto Himself! 

John Tauler. 



6 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



I cannot find Thee ! still on restless pinion 

My spirit beats the void where Thou dost dwell \ 

I wander lost through all thy vast dominion, 
And shrink beneath Thy light ineffable ! 

I cannot find Thee ! Even when most adoring 
Before thy shrine I bend in lowliest prayer, 

Beyond these bounds of thought, my thought, upsoaring, 
From further quest comes back : Thou art not there ! 

Yet high above the limits of my seeing, 
And folded far within the inmost heart, 

And deep below the deeps of conscious being, 
Thy splendor shineth ; there, O God, Thou art ! 

I cannot lose Thee ! Still in Thee abiding, 
The End is clear, how wide soe'er I roam, 

The Law that holds the worlds my steps is guiding, 
And I must rest at last in Thee, my Home ! 

Eliza Scudder. 



The Kingdom Within. 



" Return unto thy rest, O my soul ! " 

Psalm cxvi. 7. 

God hath suited every creature He hath 
made with a convenient good to which it 
tends, and in the obtainment of which it rests 
and is satisfied. Natural bodies have all their 
own natural place, whither, if not hindered, they 
move incessantly till they be in it ; and they 
declare by resting there, that they are where 
they would be. Sensitive creatures are carried 
to seek a sensitive good, as agreeable to their 
rank in being, and, attaining that, aim no further. 
Now in this is the excellency of man, that he 
is capable of a communion with his Maker, and, 
because capable of it, is unsatisfied without it : 
the soul being cut out, — so to speak, — to that 
largeness, cannot be filled with less. Though 
the heart once gone from God, turns continually 
away from Him, and moves not toward Him 
till it be renewed, yet, even in its wandering, 
it retains that natural relation to God, as its 



8 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



centre, that it hath no true rest elsewhere, nor 
can by any means find it. It is made for Him, 
and is therefore restless till it meet with Him. 

Aids to Reflection. 



Thee would man praise ; for Thou madest 
us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, 
until it repose in Thee. With Thee our good 
lives without any decay, which good art Thou; 
nor need we fear lest there be no place whither 
to return, because we fell from it: for through 
our absence our mansion fell not, — Thy Eter- 
nity! 

Saint Augustine. 



Every faculty of the soul, if it would but 
open its door, might see Christ standing 
over against it, and silently asking, by His 
smile, "Shall I not come in unto thee?" But 
men open the door, and look down, not up, and 
thus see Him not. So it is that they sigh on, 



The Kingdom Within, 



not knowing what the soul wants, but only that 
it needs something. Our yearnings are home- 
sicknesses for heaven: our sighings are for God, 
just as children that cry themselves asleep, away 
from home, and sob in their slumber, know not 
that they sob for their parents. The soul's inar- 
ticulate moanings are the affections yearning for 
the Infinite, and having no one to tell them what 
it is that ails them. 

H. W. Beecher. 



" Heart, Heart, lie still ! 
Life is fleeting fast; 
Strife will soon be past." 

" I cannot lie still ; 

Beat strong I will." 

" Heart, Heart, lie still! 
Joy 's but joy, and pain 's but pain ; 
Either, little loss or gain." 

" I cannot lie still ; 

Beat strong I will." 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

"Heart, Heart, lie still! 
Heaven is over all, 
Rules this earthly ball." 

"I cannot lie still; 

Beat strong I will." 

"Heart, Heart, lie still! 
Heaven's sweet grace alone 
Can keep in peace its own." 

" Let that me fill, 

And I am still." 



The Kingdom Within. n 

" Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the 
spirit which is of God ; that we might know the things that are 
freely given to us of God." 

i Corinthians ii. 12. 

Revelation is made by a spirit to a spirit : 
"God hath revealed them unto us by His Spir- 
it"; "The spirit searcheth all things, yea, the 
deep things of God." 

The spirit of God lies touching, as it were, 
the soul of man, — ever around and near. On 
the outside of earth man stands with the bound- 
less heaven above him ; nothing between him 
and space, — space around him and above him, 
the confines of the sky touching him. So is 
the spirit of man to the spirit of the Ever 
Near. They mingle ; in every man this is 
true. All men are not spiritual men, but all 
have spiritual sensibilities which might awaken. 
All that is wanted is to become conscious of 
the nearness of God. God has placed men here 
to feel after Him if haply they might find Him, 
albeit He be not far from any one of them. 



12 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



Our souls float in the immeasurable ocean of 
spirit. God lies around us; at any moment we 
might be conscious of the contact. 

And if obedience were entire and love were 
perfect, then would the Revelation of the Spirit 
to the soul of man be perfect too. There would 
be trust expelling care, and enabling a man to 
repose ; there would be a love which could cast 
out fear; there would be a sympathy with the 
mighty All of God. Selfishness would pass; 
isolation would be felt no longer: the tide of 
the universal and eternal Life would come with 
mighty pulsations throbbing through the soul. 

To such a man it would not matter where 
he was, nor what : to live or die would be alike. 
No matter to such a man what he saw or what 
he heard ; for every sight would be resplendent 
with beauty, and every sound would echo har- 
mony. The human would become Divine; 
life, even the meanest, noble. In the hue of 
every violet there would be a glimpse of Divine 
affection, and a dream of heaven. The forest 



The Kingdom Within, 



13 



would blaze with Deity, as it did to the eye of 
Moses. The creations of genius would breathe 
less of earth and more of heaven. ' Human love 
would burn with a clearer and intenser flame, 
rising from the altar of self-sacrifice. 

These are "the things which God hath pre- 
pared for them that love Him? 

F. W. Robertson. 

Without an end or bound 
Thy life lies all outspread in light ; 

Our lives feel Thy life all around, 
Making our weakness strong, our darkness bright ; 
Yet is it neither wilderness nor sea, 
But the calm gladness of a full eternity. 

O Thou art very great 
To set Thyself so far above ! 

But we partake of Thine estate 
Established in Thy strength and in Thy love : 
That love hath made eternal room for me 
In the sweet vastness of its own eternity. 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

O Thou art very meek, 
To overshade Thy creatures thus ! 

Thy grandeur is the shade we seek ; 
To be eternal is Thy use to us. 
O God ! what rest, what joy it is to me, 
To lose all thought of self in Thine eternity ! 

F. W. Faber. 

« O glory that no eye may bear ! 

O Presence bright, our inner Guest ! 
O Farthest off! O Ever Near ! 
Most hidden and most manifest ! " 



The Kingdom Within. 



15 



" Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into 
the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them 
that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit ; 
for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." 

1 Corinthians ii. 9, 10. 

These words, and indeed the whole tenor 
of the chapter, make it evident that the Apos- 
tle is not looking beyond the time that now 
is. The mystery with which his thoughts are 
occupied is the life of God within the human 
soul, that "preparation of the heart" wherein 
He reveals Himself after a manner not to be 
apprehended by outward sense, or recognized by 
natural perception. It is the heaven within us, 
and not the one above us, that the Apostle 
would here unfold : he is concerned, not with 
such things of God as we have to wait for, but 
with such as we have already received. And 
we know much of heaven, if it be but in the 
initials and rudiments, wherein, in the lively 
character of love, peace, joy, and devout con- 
formity to His will, God's finger has traced it 
in the regenerate soul. 



16 Breathings of the Better Life. 



We speak more truly than we are aware, 
when we say, as we often do, that we can form 
no idea of what heaven really is, until we arrive 
there. To be with God, in whatever stage of 
being, under whatever conditions of existence, is 
to be in heaven. To be found in Him, a citi- 
zen of His lower kingdom of grace, is to pos- 
sess that which gives His upper kingdom its 
glory. The rainbow round about the throne, in 
sight like unto an emerald; the sea of glass 
mingled with fire, the gates of pearl, the voice 
of harpers harping with their harps, — all these 
might be ours, without the capability of impart- 
ing a ray of genuine blessedness. They might 
pass away,— but heaven would not pass with 
them. For these are but the accidental proper- 
ties of heaven: its essentials consist in that 
without which these wonders and glories a thou- 
sand-fold repeated would convey nothing be- 
yond a momentary gratification of the senses; — 
it is not either hearing or seeing, not either 
having or beholding, that can constitute its joy. 



The Kingdom Within. 17 

Happiness is the answer to the soul's call, the 
accomplishment of its desire, the satisfaction of 
its yearning. "I beheld," saith St. John, "and a 
door was opened." Heaven is the opening of a 
door : it is the finding of a long-sought good, the 
renewal of a long-lost communion, the restoration 
to a favor which is in itself the fulness of joy. 

A Present Heaven. 



Therefore, O friend, I would not, if I might, 

Rebuild my house of lies, wherein I joyed 
One time to dwell : my soul shall walk in white, 
Cast down, but not destroyed. 

Therefore in patience I possess my soul : 

Yea, therefore as a flint I set my face 
To pluck down, to build up again the whole, — - 
But in a distant place. 

These thorns are sharp, but I can tread on them : 

This cup is loathsome, yet He makes it sweet. 
My face is steadfast towards Jerusalem ; 
My heart remembers it. 

Christina Rossetti. 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

In Thee my powers, my treasures live, 

To Thee my life must tend ; 
Giving Thyself, Thou all dost give, 

O soul-sufficing Friend! 

And wherefore should I seek above 

The City in the sky? 
Since firm in faith, and deep in love, 

Its broad foundations lie? 

Since in a life of peace and prayer, 
Nor known on earth nor praised, 

By humblest toil, by ceaseless care, 
Its holy towers are raised? 

Where pain the soul hath purified, 

And penitence hath shriven, 
And truth is crowned and glorified, 

There — only there — is heaven ! 

Eliza Scudder. 



THE OPEN EYE AND EAR. 



O hearts of love ! O souls that turn 
Like sunflowers to the pure and best, 
To you the truth is manifest ! 

For they the mind of Christ discern 
Who lean, like John, upon his breast. 

J. G. Whittier. 



22 Breathings of the Better Life. 

over him, and beneath him. As there are times 
when we stand in the midst of nature as if we 
were in a church when a joyful song of praise 
is springing from each breast, and we cannot 
help but sing also, being drawn into the stream 
of devotion, and carried along with it, — so at 
other times, how mute all creation seems to 
us, as though all pursued its way alone, without 
a hand in heaven to guide it. All depends 
upon whether God speaks in us. 

" If God thy inmost soul and being share, 
The universe becomes thy book of prayer. " 

Tholuck. 



Only let us love God, and then nature will 
compass us about like a cloud of Divine wit- 
nesses, and all influences from the earth, and 
things on the earth, will be the ministers of 
God to do us good. The breezes will whisper 
our souls into peace and purity ; and in a val- 
ley, or from a hill-top, or looking along a plain, 
delight in beautiful scenery will pass into sym- 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



23 



pathy with that indwelling though unseen spirit, 
of whose presence beauty is everywhere the man- 
ifestation, faint, indeed, because earthly. Then 
not only will the stars shed upon us light, but they 
will pour from heaven sublimity into our minds, 
and from on high will rain down thoughts to 
make us noble. God dwells in all things ; and 
felt in a man's heart, He is then to be felt in 
everything else. Only let there be God within 
us, and then everything outside us will become 
a godlike help. 

& EUTHANASY. 



Why bursts such melody from tree and bush, 
The overflowing of each songster's heart, 

So filling mine, that it can scarcely hush 
Awhile to listen, but would take its part? 

'Tis but one song I hear where'er I rove, 

Though countless be the notes, that God is Love ! 

Why leaps the streamlet down the mountain-side, 
Hasting so swiftly to the vale beneath, 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

To cheer the shepherd's thirsty flock, or glide 
Where the hot sun has left a faded wreath, 
Or, rippling, aid the music of a grove ? 
Its own glad voice replies, that God is Love. 

Is it a fallen world on which I gaze ? 

Am I as deeply fallen as the rest, 
Yet joys partaking, past my utmost praise, 

Instead of wandering forlorn, unblest ? 
It is as if an unseen spirit strove 
To grave upon my heart, that God is Love ! 

Thomas Davis. 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



25 



"There is no speech nor language where their voice is not 
heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their 
words to the end of the world.'' 

Psalm xix. 3, 4. 

Yes, truly! the voice of nature is such that 
in all tongues and languages it can be heard 
and understood. The voice with which nature 
speaks to man is as the glance of a friend, 
and as the pressure of the hand, which are un- 
derstood by all nations without speaking. Is it 
not in truth the eye of God, the truest friend, 
which looks at us through nature ? in some meas- 
ure, this has been understood by all. Yet some 
have imagined that the song of praise which all 
creation sings in heaven and earth is a song on 
the created. But creation tells of the glory of 
the Creator. How many are there who do not 
rightly understand that ! 

It is only the disciple of Christ who truly 
comprehends what is said, when, standing amid 
the glory of nature, he hears the words, "Put 
off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place 



26 Breathings of the Better Life. 

whereon thou standest is holy ground." Yes, 
only the Christian rightly knows why the earth 
is called holy ground, — the earth on which the 
Holy One of God has trod with pure feet, — 
on which the Son of God offered His sacred 
blood, — on which, when consecrated anew, will 
be a tabernacle of God with men, and God 
himself will dwell with His people for ever and 
ever. Only he who in his heart is conscious of 
the grace of God perceives that the world also 
is full of the wonders of His grace. 

O, with what entirely new eyes is the book 
of nature now read ! Everywhere it speaks of 
God, who has so loved the world that He spared 
not his own Son, but Him, — His own Life 
and Joy, — has freely given up for the world ! 
He who looks with such eyes upon nature, 
while not less than any other he is susceptible 
of the enjoyment of all its beauty, has also an- 
ticipations of the imperishable beauty of the 
new earth, on which the children of God, when 
they have attained to the glorious liberty prom- 
ised them, shall dwell for ever and ever. 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



27 



" O earth, thy splendor and thy beauty, how amazing ! 
Whene'er anew I turn to thee, intently gazing, 
With rapture I exclaim, How beautiful thou art ! 

" How beautiful ! though sinners only on thy mountains 
Now wander with unholy feet, and by thy fountains, — 
And vainly boast, alas ! that they thy rulers are. 

" But when God's chosen are o'er thee the sceptre swaying, 
O earth ! what then shall be thy glorious arraying ? — 
Then first shalt thou put on thy best, thy bridal robe." 

Tholuck. 



Surely yon heaven, where angels see God's face, 

Is not so distant as we deem 
From this low earth. 'T is but a little space, 

The narrow crossing of a slender stream ; 
'T is but a veil which winds might blow aside. 
Yes, these are all that us of earth divide 
From the bright dwelling of the glorified, — 
The land of which I dream. 

These peaks are nearer heaven than earth below, 
These hills are higher than they seem ; 

'T is not the clouds they touch, nor the soft brow 
Of the o'erbending azure, as w r e deem. 



28 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



'T is the blue floor of heaven that they upbear; 
And like some old and wildly rugged stair 
They lift us to the land where all is fair, — 
The land of which I dream. 

i 

These ocean waves, in their unmeasured sweep, 

Are brighter, bluer, than they seem • 
True image here of the celestial deep, 

Fed from the fulness of the unfailing stream, — 
Heaven's glassy sea of everlasting rest, 
With not a breath to stir its silent breast, — 
The sea that laves the land where all are blest, — 
The land of which I dream. 

H. Bonar. 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



29 



" And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall 
keep your hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus." 

Philippians iv, 7. 

Have you ever passed a fine spring morning 
amid the new-born beauties of nature ? When, 
at such a time, you have been wandering in 
the shade of peaceful groves, through the green 
canopy of which the rosy waves of sunlight 
broke ; when the soft breath of morn was wafted 
across the verdant landscape, and the number- 
less flowerets shivered, and the dew on the leaf- 
lets glittered, — the tears of joy which heaven 
had shed at the holiness and goodness of the 
Creator ; and the cascade leaping from the rock, 
and the river in its bed, and the forest on the 
hill, sent forth solemn murmurs, while high above, 
and deep below, the air resounded with the won- 
derful song of birds, and the buzzing of in- 
sects, — O what were your feelings ? Did not 
a sense of inexpressible delight flash through 
your bosom ? You drew a deep breath ; your 



30 Breathings of the Better Life, 

body seemed etherealized. You felt as if you 
must join your voice to the voices of the air, 
as if you must mix your tears with the tears of 
heaven ; you longed for the wings of rosy morn 
to soar up high into the empyrean, or to sink 
in the green depths of the forests, or to lose 
yourself in the blue haze that veiled the un- 
known distance. You longed to pour your love 
through the entire world. 

Did you ever lie down on the top of a moun- 
tain, whence you beheld a wide landscape with 
its fields and cottages spread in silent repose 
before your eyes ? In your bosom also perfect 
quiet reigned. You forgot your cares, no sor- 
row weighed on your spirits, no unpleasant re- 
membrance disturbed the calm, no intruding pas- 
sion dared to break the holy peace of your soul, 
and a voice within whispered, "Blessed were I, 
could I remain forever thus!" What you then 
felt was a fleeting foretaste of heaven, which 
sometimes even passionate, unquiet spirits are 
allowed to enjoy, in order that they may look 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



31 



into themselves, and earnestly reflect how they 
might perpetuate this tranquil and blessed state. 
You were happy because you had forgotten your- 
self, because you were free from earthly desires. 

But the true disciple of Jesus needs not to 
forget himself in order to be cheerful in his 
very innermost soul. On the contrary, it is 
when he examines his inward being, and his 
relations to the Father of all life, that he feels 
most happy. The present day may have its 
storms, but the future only smiles the more 
brightly to him. Whether he be of high or 
humble station, rich or poor, praised or blamed, 
it is all the same ; for the source of his happi- 
ness is not in the outward world, but within 
himself. He is with God, and God is with him. 
And "Blessed are. the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God' , here already, in their foretaste 
of the higher bliss of heaven. 

Zschokke. 



32 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



O Thou ! the primal fount of life and peace, 
Who sheddest Thy breathing quiet all around, 

In me command that pain and conflict cease, 
And turn to music every jarring sound. 

How longs each gulf within the weary soul 
To taste the life of this benignant hour ; 

To be at one with thine untroubled whole, 
And in itself to know Thy hushing power ! 

In One who walked on earth a man of woe, 
Was holier peace than e'en this hour inspires. 

From Him to me let inward quiet flow, 

And give the might my failing will requires. 

So this great All around, so He, and Thou, 

The central source and awful bound of things, 
May fill my heart with rest as deep as now 
' To land and sea and air, Thy presence brings ! 

Sterling. 



The Open Eye and Ear. 33 

" If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature : old things are 
passed away; behold, all things are become new." 

2 Corinthians v. 17. 

Not until the Spirit abiding within has melted 
the soul beneath the glow of the Divine charms, 
not until the angel-band of heavenly affections 
comes in, and the gang of selfish lusts goes out, 
do old things pass away, and all things become 
new. Then begins the highest motive power, 
which is love ; for he that loveth is born of God 
and knoweth Him. When our regeneration is 
consummated, love expels every other power, 
and reigns supreme and undivided. Fear is 
cast out ; hope of reward has no place, for the 
Divine service is its own great reward, its own 
exceeding joy. Obedience is sweeter to the soul 
than light is to the eye ; and sin, not in its 
consequences, but in its own essential nature, 
is more bitter than death, more loathsome than 
the grave. Then ceases the conflict within. 
There is no clashing of interest with interest, 
no balancing of one inclination against another, 
3 



34 Breathings of the Better Life. 

for none other force acts within us than God's 
impelling love. There is no self-denial, because 
there is no self to be denied. That is crucified 
and slain. We pass into that high state of which 
we had dreamed, and for which we had sighed, 
when we do just what we please, and all pleases 
us that we may do ; when we have no painful 
duties to perform, since duty is the glad motion, 
the spontaneous play of all our faculties. 

God is revealed as never before the light and 
the joy of our whole being. He glows within 
us as our life and peace, even as the sun loves 
to look into the placid lake and make his image 
"there. We pass into that state of prayer which 
cannot be translated into the clumsy vehicle of 
words ; that still communion, to which a ritual 
is a clog and a burden ; that devotion which 
knows of no declensions, since the sun that 
warms it never sets. 

Even Nature herself becomes changed, for 
how varied does she appear to us, according to 
the eyes through which we look, and whether 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



35 



we see her work as a hard material fact, or the 
picture-language that shadows forth immortal 
things. The natural man sees this world only 
from the natural side. No light from the other 
side shows him the meaning in humble affairs, 
and the redolence that breathes out of them, 
and the divine airs enfolding every object. It 
is the difference between seeing this world only 
as a material structure, contrived for man's pres- 
ent gratification, and viewing it as the scene of 
his training for the skies ; as exhibiting an ex- 
terior and perishable beauty, and as penetrated 
by an intelligence everywhere infused, that copies 
out the Everlasting Mind, and opens everywhere 
a Holy Bible to human ken. 

E. H. Sears. 



Without the smile of God upon the soul, 
We see not, and the world has lost its light ; 
For us there is no quiet in the night, 
No beauty in the stars. The saffron stole 
Of morning, or the pomp of evening's goal, 



36 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



That celebrates Day's marriage with the Sea, — 

Blue distance, silver lake, hill, glen, and tiee, — 
Are sealed unto the spirit like a scroll 

Writ in a perished language. But a ray 
Upon this darkness suddenly may dart, 
And Christ's dear love be poured into the heart, 

To clothe creation in a robe of day. 
Then doth the morning cheer, the night hath calm, 
And skies a glory, and the dews a balm. 

C. H. Town send. 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



37 



" To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden man- 
na, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name 
written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." 

Revelation ii. 17. 

I was early convinced that true religion con- 
sists in an inward life, wherein the heart doth 
love and reverence God the Creator, and learn 
to exercise true justice and goodness, not only 
toward all men, but also toward the brute 
creatures, — that as the mind is moved, by an 
inward principle, to love God as an invisible, 
incomprehensible Being, so by the same prin- 
ciple it is moved to love Him in all His mani- 
festations in the visible world, — that as by His 
breath the flame of life was kindled in all animal 
sensible creatures, to say we love God as unseen, 
and at the same time exercise cruelty toward 
the least creature moving by His life, or by life 
derived from Him, is a contradiction in itself: 
I found no narrowness respecting sects and 
opinions ; but believed that sincere upright- 
hearted people, in every society, who truly love 
God, are accepted of Him. 



38 Breathings of the Better Life. 

As I lived under the cross, and simply followed 
the openings of truth, my mind, from day to 
day, was more enlightened. While I silently 
ponder on that change wrought in me, I find 
no language equal to convey to another an idea 
of it. I looked upon the works of God in this 
visible creation, and an awfulness covered me. 
My heart was tender, and often contrite, and 
universal love to my fellow-creatures increased 
in me. 

This will be understood by such as have trod- 
den in the same path. Some glances of real 
beauty may be seen in their faces who dwell 
in true meekness. There is a harmony in the 
sound of that voice to which Divine Love gives 
utterance, and some appearance of right order 
in their temper and conduct whose passions are 
regulated: yet these do not fully show forth 
that inward life to those who have not felt it ; 
this white stone and new name is only known 
rightly by such as receive it. 

John Woolman. 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



"Quiet in God, —the ever-present seal 
Of faith unspoken, 
Believing faces, infant lips, reveal 
Its nameless token : 

"A gift bestowed upon the poor oppressed, 
To kings forbidden ; 
Beneath the shadow of Thy wings to rest, 
Securely hidden. 

" To bear for them the cross, as if for Thee, 
Strengthen me ever! 
Among Thy hidden ones O number me, 
Now and forever ! " 



Wouldst thou the life of souls discern ? 

Nor human wisdom nor divine 
Helps thee by aught beside to learn; 

Love is life's only sign. 
The spring of the regenerate heart, 
The pulse, the glow of every part, 
Is the true love of Christ our Lord, 
As man embraced, as God adored. 



4Q 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



But he whose heart will bound to mark 

The full bright bursts of summer morn, 
Loves too each little dewy spark 
By leaf or floweret worn : 
Cheap forms, and common hues, 't is true, 
Through the bright shower-drop meet his ^ 
The coloring may be of this earth; 
The lustre comes of heavenly birth. 

Even so who loves the Lord aright 

No soul of man can worthless find ; 
All will be precious in his sight, 

Since Christ on all hath shined ; 
But chiefly Christian souls; for they, 
Though worn and soiled with sinful clay, 
Are yet, to eyes that see them true, 
All glistening with baptismal dew. 

Keble. 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



4i 



" Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things 
out of thy law." 

Psalm cxix. 18. 

Blessed is the man whom eternal Truth teach- 
eth, not by obscure figures and transient sounds, 
but by direct and full communication. The per- 
ceptions of our senses are narrow and dull, and 
our reasoning on those perceptions frequently 
misleads us. He whom the eternal Word con- 
descended to teach is disengaged at once from 
the labyrinth of human opinions. For "of one 
word are all things " ; and all things without 
voice or language speak Him alone : He is that 
divine principle which speaketh in our hearts, and 
without which there can be neither just appre- 
hension nor rectitude of judgment. 

O God, who art the truth, make me one with 
Thee in everlasting love ! I am often weary of 
reading, and weary of hearing ; in Thee alone is 
"the sum of my desire ! Let all teachers be silent, 
let the whole creation be dumb before Thee, and 
do Thou only speak unto my soul ! 



42 Breathings of the Better Life. 



Thy ministers can pronounce the words, but 
cannot impart the spirit ; they may entertain the 
fancy with the charms of eloquence ; but if Thou 
art silent, they do not inflame the heart. They 
administer the letter, but Thou openest the 
sense ; they utter the mystery, but Thou revealest 
its meaning ; they point out the way of life, but 
Thou bestowest strength to walk in it ; they 
water, but Thou givest the increase. Therefore 
do Thou, O Lord my God, Eternal Truth ! speak 
to my soul ! lest, being outwardly warmed, but 
not inwardly quickened, I die, and be found un- 
fruitful. 

" Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." " Thou 
only hast the words of eternal life." 

Thomas a Kemp is. 



'T is not the skill of human art 

Which gives me power my God to know ; 
The sacred lessons of the heart 

Come not from instruments below. 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



43 



Love is my teacher. He can tell 
The wonders that he learnt above \ 

No other master knows so well ; — 
'T is Love alone can tell of Love. 

Love is my master. When it breaks, — 
The morning light, the rising ray, — 

To Thee, O God ! my spirit wakes, 
And Love instructs it all the day. 

And when the gleams of day retire, 

And midnight spreads its dark control, 

Love's secret whispers still inspire 

Their holy lessons in the soul. 

Madame Guyon. 



44 Breathings of the Better Life. 

" Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his 
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." 

Galatians iv. 6. 

The Spirit of God dwells within us, acts there, 
prays without ceasing, groans, desires, asks for us 
what we know not how to ask for ourselves, urges 
us on, animates us, speaks to us when we are 
silent, suggests to us all truth, and so unites us to 
Him that we become one spirit. He is the soul 
of our soul ; we could not form a thought or a 
desire without Him. We reckon ourselves alone 
in the interior sanctuary, when God is much more 
intimately present there than we are ourselves. 
Without the actual inspiration of the spirit of 
grace, we could neither do, nor will, nor believe 
any good thing. 

We are, then, always inspired, but we inces- 
santly stifle the inspiration. God does not cease 
to speak, but the noise of the creatures without, 
and of our passions within, confuses us, and pre- 
vents our hearing. We must silence every crea- 



The Open Eye and Ear. 45 

ture, including self, that in the deep stillness of 
the soul we may perceive the ineffable voice of 
the Bridegroom. We must lend an attentive 
ear, for His voice is soft and still, and is only 
heard of those who hear nothing else. Ah, how 
rare it is to find a soul still enough to hear God 
speak! The slightest murmur of our vain de- 
sires, or of a love fixed upon self, confounds all 
words of the Spirit of God. 

It is true that we are continually inspired, and 
that we do not lead a gracious life, except so far 
as we act under this interior inspiration. But 
how few feel it ! how few are they who do not 
annihilate it by their voluntary distractions, or by 
their resistance. 

I thank Thee, O my God, with Jesus Christ, 
that Thou hast hid thine ineffable secrets from 
the great and wise, while Thou takest pleasure in 
revealing them to feeble and humble souls ! It 
is with babes alone that Thou art wholly unre- 
served ; the others Thou treatest in their own 
way; they desire knowledge and great virtues, 



46 Breathings of the Better Life. 

and Thou givest them dazzling illuminations, and 
convertest them into heroes. But this is not the 
better part : there is something more hidden for 
Thy dearest children ; they lie with John upon 
Thy breast. 

Fenelon. 



Dear Comforter ! Eternal Love ! 

If Thou wilt stay with me, 
Of lowly thoughts and simple ways 

I '11 build a house for Thee. 

Who made this beating heart of mine 
But Thou, my heavenly Guest % 

Let no one have it, then, but Thee ; 
And let it be Thy rest ! 

Faber. 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



47 



"I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known 

of mine." T 

John x. 14. 

There is here a deep truth of human nature ; 
Christ does not limit the recognizing power to 
himself. He says that the sheep know Him as 
truly as He the sheep. He knew men on the 
same principle on which we know men, — the 
same on which we know Him ; the only differ- 
ence is in degree. 

Marvellous is it how innocence perceives the 
approach of evil which it cannot know by expe- 
rience, just as -the dove which has never seen 
the falcon trembles by instinct at its approach ; 
just as a blind man detects by finer sensitive- 
ness the passing of the cloud which he cannot 
see overshadowing the sun. It is wondrous how, 
the truer we become, the more unerringly we 
know the ring of truth, can discern whether a 
man be true or not, and can fasten at once 
upon the rising lie in word and look and dis- 
sembling act ; — wondrous how the charity of 



4 8 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



Christ in the heart perceives every aberration 
from charity in others, in ungentle thought or 
slanderous tone. 

Therefore Christ knew His sheep by that mys- 
tic power always finest in the best natures, most 
developed in the highest, by which like detects 
what is like and what unlike itself. He was Per- 
fect Love, Perfect Truth, Perfect Purity ; there- 
fore He knew what was in man, and felt, as by 
another sense, afar off, the shadows of unloving- 
ness, and falseness, and impurity. It was as if 
His bosom was some mysterious mirror on which 
all that came near Him left a sullied or unsullied 
surface, detecting themselves by every breath. 

How shall we recognize Truth divine ? What 
is the test by which we shall know whether it 
comes from God or not? 

Christ says, "My sheep know Me? Wisdom 
is justified by her children. Not by some length- 
ened investigation, whether the shepherd's dress 
be the identical dress, and the staff the crozier 
genuine, do the sheep recognize the shepherd. 



The Open Eye and Ear. 



49 



They know him, they hear his voice, they know 
him as a man knows his friend : they know him, 
in short, instinctively. 

Just so does the soul recognize what is of 
God and true. Truth is like light: visible in 
itself, not distinguished by the shadows it casts. 
There is a something in our souls of God which 
corresponds with what is of God outside us, and 
recognizes it by direct intuition; something in 
the true soul which corresponds with truth, and 
knows it to be truth. Christ came with truth, 
and the true recognize it as true ; the sheep know 
the shepherd, wanting no further evidence. 

In all matters of eternal truth, the soul is 
before the intellect ; the things of God are spir- 
itually discerned. You know truth by being 
true; you recognize God by being like Him. 

F. W. Robertson. 



4 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



No outward mark have we to know 

Who Thine, O Christ, may be, 
Until a Christian love doth show 

Who appertains to Thee. 
For knowledge may be reached unto, 

And formal justice gained, 
But till each other love we do, 

Both faith and works are feigned. 

Love is the sum of those commands 

Which Thou with thine dost leave ; 
And for a mark on them it stands, 

Which never can deceive : 
For when our knowledge folly turns, 

When shows no show retain, 
And zeal itself to nothing burns, 

Then love shall still remain. 

George Wither. 



WAY OF ACCESS. 



Thou art the Way I 
All ways are thorny mazes without Thee, 

Where hearts are pierced, and thoughts all aimless stray ; 
In Thee the heart stands firm, the life moves free : 

Thou art our Way ! 

Three Wakings. 

Teach me Thy love to know, 
That this new light which now I see 
May both the work and workman show ; 
Then by a sunbeam I will climb to Thee. 

George Herbert. 



WAY OF ACCESS. 



« No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, 
which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." 



E cannot love a mere abstraction, an 



* * impalpable something, simply because we 
believe we might so to love. Truly to love 
God we must know him, — know him as our 
Father, as our best, truest, nearest Friend ; 
feel him near to us in every bright and joy- 
ous, and in every clouded and trying scene 
of life; speaking to us in the glad sunshine 
and the darkened cloud, — in the dewy fresh- 
ness of the summer morn, and the calm and 
glowing radiance of the sunset hour, — in the 
gorgeous tints of the autumn forests, and the 
opening leaves and bursting buds of the joy- 
ous spring; drawing near to us in all our 



John i. 18. 




54 Breathings of the Better Life. 

daily walks ; encompassing our path and our 
lying down ; sending the pulses of health 
bounding through our veins ; blessing us in 
countless forms and ways, or withholding such 
gifts of his bounty only the more truly to 
draw our hearts to Him, only to crown us 
with a yet more enduring loving-kindness, and 
a yet more tender mercy. 

Above all, to love God, we must know him 
as manifested in Christ, — know him as in- 
carnated in human form, — know him as re- 
vealing his -holiness, his tenderness, his pity, 
his yearning love and condescending grace, in 
the suffering, glorified Redeemer. Here you 
can sit at the very feet of One who knows 
you wholly, who has been tried through sor- 
row and desertion and all forms of human 
suffering, and who can and does feel with 
you and for you in every secret struggle and 
every spiritual aspiration. Here is no vain 
abstraction, but the Father thus condescend- 
ingly manifesting himself to his children, as 



Way of Access. 



55 



if to awaken in them those deep, fervent 
emotions of love and of trust which form the 
only true, living, and enduring bond between 
the Parent and the Child. 

The Homeward Path. 

O Thou, who art enrobed in light, 

How pure the soul must be, 
When, placed within Thy searching sight, 
It shrinks not, but with calm delight 

Can live and look on Thee ! 

Lord, how can I, whose native sphere 

Is dark, whose mind is dim, 
Before Thy radiant light appear, 
And on my naked spirit bear 

Thine uncreated beam? 

Is there a way for man to rise 

To that sublime abode? — 
Thine offering and Thy sacrifice, 
Thy pains and groans, and tears and cries, 

Thy death, O Lamb of God ! 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

These, these prepare us for the sight 

Of Majesty above. 
The sons of ignorance and night 
May dwell in the Eternal Light 

Through the Eternal Love. 

Sabbath Hymn-Book. 



Way of Access. 



57 



"Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." 

John xvi. 24. 

Prayer is an act of friendship. It is inter- 
course ; an act of trust, of hope, of love, all 
prompting to interchange between the soul and 
an Infinite, Spiritual, Invisible Friend. We all 
need prayer, if for no other purpose, for that 
which we so aptly call communion with God. 
We all need friendly converse with Him whom 
our souls love. " He alone is a thousand com- 
panions ; He alone is a world of friends. That 
man never knew what it was to be familiar with 
God, who complains of the want of friends while 
God is with him." 

It has been said that no great work in lit- 
erature or science was ever wrought by a man 
who did not love solitude. We may lay it 
down as an elemental principle of religion, that 
no large growth in holiness was ever gained 
by one who did not take time to be often and 
long alone with God. No otherwise can the 



58 Breathings of the Better Life. 

great central idea of God enter into a man's 
life, and dwell there supreme. 

" Holiness," says Dr. Cudworth, " is something 
of God, wherever it is. It is an efflux from 
Him, and lives in Him ; as the sunbeams, al- 
though they gild this lower world, and spread 
their golden wings over us, yet they are not so 
much here where they shine, as in the sun 
from whence they flow." Such a possession 
of the idea of God we never gain but from 
still hours. For such holy joy in God, we must 
have much of the Spirit of Him who rose up 
a great while before day, and departed into a 
solitary place and prayed, and who continued 
all night in prayer ; " the morning star finding 
Him where the evening star had left Him." 

The Still Hour. 



Way of Access. 



59 



Lord, what a change within us one short hour 
Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make, — 
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take, — - 

What parched grounds refresh, as with a shower ! 

We kneel, and all around us seems to lower • 
We rise, and all, the distant and the near, 
Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear. 

We kneel, how weak ! we rise, how full of power ! 
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, 
Or others, that we are not always strong, — 

That we are ever overborne with care, — 
That we should ever weak or heartless be, 

Anxious or troubled, — when with us is prayer, 

And joy, and strength, and courage are with Thee ? 

R. C. Trench. 



60 Breathings of the Better Life. 

"Lord, teach us to pray." 

Luke xi. i. 

Even the noblest of men, the most learned, 
the most enlightened, are but weak mortals, as 
long as their spirits are clad in the veil of dust. 
It is impossible for them to remain ever, or 
even for any length of time, in the exalted mood 
to which their minds are occasionally attuned 
by their power of insight, and by sublime prin- 
ciples, free from all dross of earth. They ever 
sink back again into their lower state ; they 
again seek support in human customs ; it is a 
satisfaction to them to feel like children ; — 
and, indeed, what is man, in reference to his 
Father in Heaven, but a child ? 

Men need to turn their thoughts to God; it 
is a necessity of their nature to commune, and 
to occupy themselves with the Highest Being ; 
they cannot be happy without feeling in their 
hearts confiding trust in the wise and kind provi- 
dence of an Infinite Father. And in like man- 



Way of Access. 



ner as they are wont to pour out their hearts to 
parents, friends, or protectors, although these 
may be well aware of all that they have to say, 
and would love them and protect and support 
them, though they spoke no word, so they also 
address themselves to God, with calm, believ- 
ing, childlike hearts. They lift up their thoughts 
full of reverence to the Ruler of the universe ; 
they breathe a gentle sigh towards the Foun- 
tain of all good. This is prayer. 

Prayer opens to us, as it were, the portals of 
the spirit-world, in which we also have some 
right of citizenship. We draw nearer to the 
Deity, and feel that we belong to Him. We 
rise on the wings of prayer, above all that is 
worthless and perishable, and become greater, 
yea, more divine, as we do so. The conviction 
becomes ever mightier within us, that we can 
never cease to exist. We distinguish more 
clearly between what is everlasting and what 
is perishable, — between what is real and what 
is mere appearance. We see the whole uni- 



62 Breathings of the Better Life. 

verse in a new light. The globe on which we 
dwell becomes in our eyes a mere speck in the 
great immeasurable All. We descry, through 
the boundless distances of the starry heavens, 
a minute portion only of the great temple of 
the Holy of Holies, and we glow with rapture 
at the thought of having been made worthy, 
by the power of God, to be called inhabitants 
of this divine kingdom. 

And happy presentiments thrill through us. 
Heavenly joy pervades all nature. This is the 
power of prayer: this is the effect of drawing 
nigh unto God. 

Zschokke. 



"Then ask us not why, day by day, 
The same sweet morning prayers we say; 
Why, night by night, our even-song 
Peals in the same soft strain along; 
Why children seek their mother's knee 

At eve, to lisp their prayer, 
While lingers rosy-fingered sleep 

O'er their fringed eyelids fair. 



Way of Access. 



63 



" Nor say, ' Ye vex God's patient ear ; 
And vain the strains that linger here,— 
A soulless form, a weary round, 
A cry that hath no echoing sound : 
Ye hear no voice, ye see no sign, 

Adown heaven's crystal stair; 
No white-robed angels gliding bring 

An answer to your prayer.' 

"Nay, but God loves the constant cry; 
He wills the words should never die 
That speak our needs. Prayer pushes prayer 
Up into heaven's sublimer air; 
Around the throne eternally 

They pass and still repass : 
Our whispers are the airs that breathe 
Above the sea of glass." 



04 Breathings of the Better Life. 



" Not as I will, but as thou wilt." 

Matthew xxvi. 39. 

To say that a man is religious, is the same 
thing as to say that he prays. For what is 
prayer ? To connect every thought with the 
thought of God ; to look on everything as His 
work and appointment ; to submit every thought, 
wish, and resolve to Him ; to feel His presence, 
so that it shall restrain us even in our wildest 
joy : that is prayer. 

All prayer is to change the will human into 
submission to the will Divine. 

In the prayer taught by Christ there is only i 
one petition for personal good, and that a sin- 
gularly simple and modest one : " Give us this 
day our daily bread"; and even that expresses 
dependence far rather than anxiety or desire. 

From this we understand the spirit of that 
retirement for prayer into lonely tops of moun- 
tains and deep shades of night, of which we read 
so often in His life. It was not so much to 



Way of Access. 



65 



secure any definite event as from the need of 
holy communion with His Father. 

Prayer is one thing, petition quite another. 
Indeed, hints are given us which make it seem 
that a time will come when spirituality shall be 
so complete, and acquiescence in the will of God 
so entire, that petition shall be superseded. " In 
that day ye shall ask me nothing." 

"Again, I say not I will pray the Father for 
you, for the Father Himself loveth you." 

Pray as He did, till prayer makes you cease 
to pray. Pray till prayer makes you forget your 
own wish, and leave it, or merge it in God's 
Will. The Divine Wisdom has given us prayer, 
not as a means whereby to obtain the good 
things of earth, but as a means whereby we 
may learn to do without them ; not as a means 
whereby we escape evil, but as a means whereby 
we become strong to meet it. " There appeared 
an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening 
Him." That was the true reply to His prayer. 

And so, in the expectation of impending dan- 
5 



66 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



ger, our prayer has won the victory, not when 
we have warded off the trial, but when, like 
Him, we have learned to say, "Arise, let us 
go to meet the evil." 

F. W. Robertson. 



I worship Thee, sweet Will of God ! 

And all Thy ways adore ; 
And every day I live, I seem 

To love Thee more and more. 

When obstacles and trials seem 

Like prison-walls to be, 
I do the little I can do, 

And leave the rest to Thee. 

I Have no cares, O blessed Will ! 

For all my cares are Thine. 
I live in triumph, Lord, for Thou 

Hast made Thy triumphs mine. 

He always wins who sides with God : 
To him no chance is lost ; 



Way of Access. 



67 



God's will is sweetest to him when 
It triumphs at his cost. 

Ill that He blesses is our good, 

And unblessed good is ill ; 
And all is right that seems most wrong, 

If it be His sweet Will. 

Faber. 

The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed, 

If Thou the spirit give by which I pray : 

My unassisted heart is barren clay, 
That of its native self can nothing feed. 
Of good and pious works Thou art the seed 

That quickens only where Thou sayest it may. 

Unless Thou show to us Thy own true way, 
No man can find it. Father ! Thou must lead. 
Do Thou then breathe such thoughts into my mind 
By which such virtue may in me be bred, 
That in Thy holy footsteps I may tread. 

The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind, 
That I may have the power to sing to Thee, 
And sound Thy praises everlastingly ! 

Michel Angelo. 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



" What shall I do to gain eternal life ? " 

Discharge aright 
The simple dues with which each day is rife, — 

Yea, with thy might. 
Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise 

Will life be fled; 
While he who ever acts as conscience cries, 

Shall live, though dead. 

Schiller. 



'* There is no death to those who know of Life ; 
No Time to those who see Eternity." 



LIFE ETERNAL. 



" I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt 
enlarge my heart." 



OTHING shows more strikingly how low 



^ are the motives in much of our religion 
than the gloomy way in which men become 
religious. Too many are driven to God by fear 
of His anger, or of an outward hell. 

But what is being religious, but always see- 
ing God's infinite love in everything, and loving 
Him all the time? It is seeing His mercy in 
the sun and sky; in the hills and plains; in 
daily life, with its discipline and education ; in 
the friendships of our friends ; in our insight 
into new truths ; in the grand opportunities of 
daily service of the human race which He affords 
us. It is hearing and answering His invitation 



Psalm cxix. 32. 




72 Breathings of the Better Life. 

to come to Him to be inspired, to be filled with 
light, to be filled with love, to be filled with 
power. 

Suppose all the little buds and seeds should 
say : " O dear ! April has come ; and now we 
shall have to unpack ourselves, and go out of 
these snug little chambers where we have been 
sleeping all winter, with nothing to do but rest. 
It is getting warmer every day. Strange thrills 
pass through us, ' the blind motion of the spring/ 
But do let us stay as long as we can, shut up 
here ; for it will be a very gloomy thing to go 
out into the soft summer air, and unfold our- 
selves in the sunlight into tremulous leaves, 
bending stalks, and fragrant flowers." 

But Nature does not look unhappy in un- 
folding. And why, if seeds and buds enjoy 
unfolding in the sun, should not our souls en- 
joy unfolding in the sunlight of our Father's 
infinite tenderness and perfect love ? Why 
should we give ourselves grudgingly, and as 
of necessity, to the love of God? Why hesi- 



Life Eternal. 



73 



tate and tremble, and think we are not good 
enough to love Him, or to be loved by Him? 

Love does not hesitate. Love leaves all and 
follows. 

J. F. Clarke. 

Blest be Thy love, dear Lord, 
That taught us this sweet way, 

Only to love Thee for Thyself, 
And for that love obey. 

Whether we sleep or wake, 

To Thee we both resign; 
By night we see, as well as day, 

If Thy light on us shine. 

Whether we live or die, 

Both we submit to Thee; 
In death we live, as well as life, 

If Thine in death we be. 

J. Austin. 



74 Breathings of the Better Life. 

" He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." 

John iii. 36. 

A deepened sense of this truth would work 
within us a dissatisfaction with the vague im- 
pressions which, upon many points connected 
with death and the future state, have too much 
taken the place of Gospel realities among us. As 
Christians we permit ourselves upon these sub- 
jects to use language strangely inconsistent with 
our name and profession, — language which, - if 
reduced to its true sense and value, would go 
far to make it appear that we had chosen death, 
not Christ, for our Saviour. 

True it is, that so long as we continue in the 
body, we have yet to wait for that body's full 
redemption, anticipating which the natural crea- 
tion and the regenerated spirit of man groan 
together, being burdened. " He that is dead is 
freed from sin." Yet we must never forget that 
not only Immortality, but Life, has been brought 
to light by the Gospel. 



Life Eternal. 



75 



• With regard to the nature of the renewed 
life, the Scriptures have been most explicit, 
equally so as to the conditions by which it 
holds. They acquaint us with a state of being 
to be attained, not through death, but through 
Him who hath overcome it, and opened for us 
the gate of everlasting life ; they unfold to us 
in its amplest particulars the character of this 
eternal life as revealed to us in the person of 
Christ Jesus, to whom alone it has been given 
to have life in Himself, and from whom all our 
life is derived. 

All renewed life, being one with that of the 
Renewer, is one life, the same life, whether it 
be spent in heaven or upon earth. On this 
point, the very wording of Scripture is guarded ; 
there is no future employed; it is not "shall 
have," but "hath," — hath now everlasting life. 

At the touch of death, the flower and grass 
of our natural life fall away and perish, but the 
Word of God, and that which is born of it, 
endureth forever. Our spiritual life lies in a 



76 Breathings of the Better Life. 

region far removed from the influence of any 
natural event or change: it is hid in Christ; 
and St. Paul proves how much our future life 
in Him is but the continuation and expansion 
of that which, even in the flesh, we live by the 
faith of the Son of God, when he says, "When 
Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall 
ye also appear with Him in glory." 

Though death cannot, according to the pop- 
ular phrase, admit us to a better life, it will 
give those who have already attained to the 
one life — the life which is in Christ Jesus — 
a better world in which to live. Our present 
life in Him may be compared to that of the 
seed ; a hidden life, contending, underground, 
against cold and darkness and obstructions, yet 
bearing within its breast the indestructible germ 
of vitality. Death lifts the soul into the sun- 
shine for which a hidden, invisible work has 
prepared it. Heaven is the life of the flower. 

A Present Heaven. 



Life Eternal. 



77 



As light and warmth to noontide hours, 
To sweetest voices tuneful songs, 

And as to summer fields the flowers, 
So heaven to heavenly souls belongs. 

Sterling. 



Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch 
At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb ; 

Keep clean, bear fruit, earn life, and watch 
Till the white-winged reapers come ! 

H. Vaughan. 



78 Breathings of the Better Life, 



" According as his divine power hath given unto us all things 
that pertain unto life and godliness, .... that by these ye might 
be partakers of the divine nature." 

2 Peter i. 3, 4. 

Now, wherever a man hath been made a par- 
taker of the Divine nature, in him is fulfilled 
the best and the noblest life, and the worthiest 
in God's eyes that hath been or can be. 

This life is not chosen in order to serve any 
end, or to get anything by it, but for love of 
its nobleness, and becausq God loveth and es- 
teemeth it so greatly. And whoever saith that 
he hath had enough of it, and may now lay it 
aside, hath never tasted nor known it ; for he 
who hath truly felt or tasted it can never give 
it up again. And he who hath put on the life 
of Christ with the intent to win or deserve 
aught thereby, hath taken it up as an hireling, 
and not for love, and is altogether without it. 
For he who doth not take it up for love, hath 
none of it at all ; he may dream indeed that 
he hath put it on, but he is deceived. 



Life Eternal. 



79 



Christ did not lead such a life as his for the 
sake of reward, but out of love ; and love mak- 
eth such a life light, and taketh away all its 
hardships, so that it becometh sweet and is 
gladly endured. But to him who hath not put 
it on from love, but hath done so, as he dream- 
eth, for the sake of reward, it is utterly bitter 
and a weariness, and he would fain be quit of 
it. And it is a sure token of an hireling, that 
he wisheth his work were at an end. But he 
who truly loveth it is not offended at its toil 
nor suffering, nor the length of time it lasteth. 

Therefore it is written, "To serve God and 
live to Him is easy to him who doeth it." 
Truly it is so to him who doth it for love, but 
it is hard and wearisome to him who doth 
it for hire. But God rejoiceth more over one 
man who truly loveth, than over a thousand 
hirelings. 

Theologia Germanica. 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



God only is the creature's home, 
Though long and rough the road ; 

Yet nothing less can satisfy 
The love that longs for God. 

How little of that road, my soul, 

How little hast thou gone ! 
Take heart, and let the thought of God 

Allure thee further on. 

The perfect way is hard to flesh ; 

It is not hard to love ; 
If thou wert sick for want of God, 

How swiftly wouldst thou move ! 

Faber. 



Life Eternal. 



81 



"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." 

John xvii. 3. 

What is it that we mean by this word so often 
upon our lips, — Salvation ? Does it comprehend 
all that can make either this world or the next 
one desirable in the restoration to God's favor, 
and the recovery of our lost birthright of hap- 
piness in Him ? or is our idea of it restricted 
to that "escaping from Hell and going to 
Heaven," to which the mere ordinary notion of 
it is limited ? I will not dwell upon the low 
and servile character with which thoughts such 
as these invest an estate whose essential attri- 
bute is liberty ; I will but ask the followers of 
Him whose name was called Jesus, that he 
might save His people from their iniquities, if 
they hate sin because their God hates it, or 
only because He punishes it ? Is it from the 
accursed thing itself, or only from the conse- 
quences of its being found upon them, that 
they pray and strive to be delivered? 
6 



82 Breathings of the Better Life. 

Does not God's covenant, when read by its 
own light, disclose itself as a covenant, even in 
this present time, of life and peace ? 

To believe in one God, the Father of men 
and spirits, revealed to us in His Son's life, 
reconciled to us through His Son's death, and 
imparted to us through the agency of the life- 
giving Spirit, is to live in the sense, to rely 
upon the strength, and to rejoice in the sweet- 
ness of a Divine relationship. It is to know 
that we are no longer strangers and foreign- 
ers with our God, but to feel that, in the 
bonds of this everlasting covenant, He is in 
us and we are in Him, brought near by the 
Son, kept near by the Spirit, bound together 
in a threefold cord which shall not be quickly 
broken. 

Having entered in by the door, the soul is 
"saved," yea, it may go in and out, and find 
pasture ; for He who has delivered our souls 
from death has at the same time delivered our 
eyes from tears, and our feet from falling. 



Life Eternal. 



83 



Return then, unto thy rest, O my soul, for 
thy Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee ! 
He who is become thy salvation will be also 
thy shield and thy song, the strength of thy 
life, as well as thy portion forever ! 

A Present Heaven. 



I love thee, O my God, but not 

For what I hope thereby; 
Nor yet because who love thee not 

Must die eternally : 
I love thee, O my God, and still 

I ever will love thee, 
Solely because my God thou art 

Who first hast loved me. 

For me to lowest depths of woe 

Thou didst Thyself abase ; 
For me didst bear the cross, the shame, 

And manifold disgrace ; 
For me didst suffer pains unknown, 

Blood-sweat and agony, 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

Yea, death itself, all, all for me, 
For me, thine enemy. 

Then shall I not, O Saviour mine, 

Shall I not love thee well ? 
Not for the sake of winning heaven 

Nor of escaping hell ; 
Not with the hope of earning aught, 

Nor seeking a reward, 
But freely, fully, as thyself 

Hast loved me, O Lord. 

St. Francis Xavier. 



Life Eternal. 



85 



"And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, 
even as he is pure." 

1 John hi. 3. 

It is of the very essence of salvation to love 
God, to depart from sin, and to work right- 
eousness ; not to be able to find happiness in 
all the pleasures of earth, but to be willing to 
suffer all manner of pain and contradiction, and 
not seek to avoid them: when a man has 
come to this state it is well with him, and not 
otherwise. 

If he hunger after his salvation as one who 
is perishing for lack of food, it will avail him 
nothing, until he cast off sin, and work the 
works of righteousness which are befitting a 
child of grace, and endure all wrong and in- 
justice patiently for God's sake. For without 
this, his thirst for salvation can neither be sat- 
isfied here nor hereafter. 

Yea, if a man were to suffer himself to be 
torn in pieces, and did not learn to cleanse 



86 Breathings of the Better Life. 

himself thoroughly from his sins, to behave to- 
wards his fellow-creatures in a spirit of gen- 
erous love, and to love God above all things, 
it would all be useless and in vain. 

"To be converted to the truth means noth- 
ing else but a turning from the love of created 
things, and a coming into union with the un- 
created Highest Good. Love is the noblest of 
all virtues, for it makes man divine, and makes 
God man." 

John Tauler. 



Who would build up his manhood well 
Must lay the great foundation stone 
In Piety, for he shall dwell 
Secure in that alone. 

Pavement and roof and palace wall 
Of God's own jewels shall be built ; 
And so thy house shall never fall 
Beneath the storms of guilt. 



Life Eternal. 



87 



O, bind thyself with silver ties 
To men, — to God with golden bands : 
This is Religion ; — thus shall rise 
The house not made with hands. 

Reverberations. 



All before us lies the way ; 

Give the past unto the wind; 
All before us is the day, 

Night and darkness are behind. 

Eden with its angels bold, 

Love and flowers and coolest sea, 

Is less an ancient story told 
Than a glowing prophecy. 

When the soul to sin hath died, 
True and beautiful and sound, 

Then all earth is sanctified ; 
Up springs paradise around. 

R. W. Emerson. 



S H ADO WS. 



He sendeth sun, He sendeth shower ; 
Alike they 're needful for the flower : 
And joys and tears alike are sent 
To give the soul fit nourishment : 
As comes to me or cloud or sun, 
Father, Thy will 3 not mine, be done ! 

S. F. Adams. 



SHADOWS. 



" Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief." 

Mark ix. 24. 

WE cannot advance uninterruptedly in our 
spiritual, any more than in our bodily 
life, from one degree of brightness to another. 
The shadow of the earth will ever and anon 
fling the darkness of night over us ; sleep will 
creep upon us; we flag and grow weary, and 
yield to it ; and we should sleep on self-in- 
dulgently, unless we were awakened again and 
again by the light of the Sun of Righteous- 
ness, piercing through our night, and bursting 
the bands of our sleep. There should, indeed, 
be a progress in our spiritual life : else that 
life will too plainly be giving way before the 
manifold influences which try to check and 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



destroy it. But our progress, so long as we 
continue in the flesh, will never be unbroken; 
nor shall we make any real progress at all, 
without fresh impulses from the Power which 
first set us in motion. Our noon should keep 
on growing brighter and brighter; but it will 
only do so when we live under a perpetual 
dawn, when new influxes of light are ever 
pouring upon us from the same celestial Foun- 
tain. For, as it is a law of all life, that every 
creature, while it is the offspring of all former 
generations, shall yet have a new germ of life 
in itself, so, in our moral life, every act is at 
once the result of our whole previous moral be- 
ing, and springs immediately and freshly from 
the will. And as in our moral, so in our 
spiritual life, no moment stands alone. There 
is no moment in it, which is not connected 
by indissoluble ties of motive and impulse with 
all that we have hitherto felt, and thought, 
and done. At the same time no moment in 
it will have any true spiritual energy, unless 



Shadows. 



93 



we are immediately prompted and animated by 
the life-giving Spirit of God. 

Hence it is not enough for us to be con- 
vinced of the sin of unbelief once for all, 
even though that conviction be the work of 
the Comforter. When a body is put in mo- 
tion, we know, unless its motion were checked 
by retarding forces, it would continue to move 
on without limit ; but we know no less surely 
that these retarding forces will soon lay hands 
on it and arrest it. So we might fancy that 
when the soul is once lifted up from the earth, 
and projected into the free atmosphere of faith, 
it would continue to soar into the heaven of 
heavens, nor rest until it reached the throne 
of God. But we know too well that this 
is not so, that it gravitates to the world of 
the senses, and that it has a leaden weight 
of self-will bearing it downward. Against these 
hindrances we cannot even strive, much less 
rise above them, unless the Comforter be con- 
tinually helping us onward, by convincing us 



94 Breathings of the Better Life. 

more and more deeply of the sin of not be- 
lieving in Christ. 

Hence he who truly believes, the stronger 
his faith in the unseen world may be, with 
the greater humiliation will he deplore his own 
inability to live in an unwavering communica- 
tion with it, and to subdue the temptations 
which would draw him away from it, the more 
earnestly will he cry, "Lord, / believe ; help 
thou my unbelief!" ^ ^ CoMFORTER . 



Father, in Thy mysterious presence kneeling, 
Fain would our souls feel all Thy kindling love; 

For we are weak, and need some deep revealing 
Of trust, and strength, and calmness from above. 

Lord, we have wandered long through doubt an 
sorrow, 

And Thou hast made each step an onward one: 
And we will trust for every unknown morrow; — 
Thou wilt sustain us till the work is done. 



Shadows. 



In the heart's depths, a peace serene and holy 
Abides, and when pain seems to have her will, 

Or we despair, — O, may that peace rise slowly, 
Stronger than agony, and we be still ! 

Now, Father, now, in Thy dear presence kneeling 
- Our spirits yearn to feel Thy kindling love ; 
Now make us strong! we need Thy deep revealing 
Of trust, and strength, and calmness from above. 

S. Johnson. 



96 



Breathings of the Better Life, 



" As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul 
after thee, O God." 



Psalm xlii. z. 



The feeling of forsakenness is no proof of be- 
ing forsaken. Mourning after an absent God is 
an evidence of love as strong as rejoicing in a 
present one. Nay, a man may be more deci- 
sively the servant of God and goodness, while 
doubting His existence, and crying for light, 
than while resting in a common creed, and 
coldly serving Him. There has been One, at 
least, whose apparent forsakenness, and whose 
seeming doubt, bear the stamp of the majesty 
of Faith. "My God, my God, why hast Thou 
forsaken me ? " 

There are hours when physical derangement 
darkens the windows of the soul ; days in 
which shattered nerves make life simply en- 
durance ; months and years in which intel- 
lectual difficulties, pressing for solution, shut out 
God. Then faith must be replaced by hope. 



Shadows. 



97 



"What I do thou knowest not now, but thou 
shalt know hereafter." 

It is impossible to derive consolation from 
our own feelings, because of their mutability; 
to-day we are well, and our spiritual experience, 
partaking of these circumstances, is bright ; but 
to-morrow some outward circumstances change, 
— the sun does not shine, — or the wind is 
chill, — and we are low and sad. Then if our 
hopes were unreasonably elevated, they will 
now be unreasonably depressed; and so our 
experience becomes flux and reflux, ebb and 
flow, like the sea, — that emblem of instability. 
The mistake we make is, to look for a source 
of comfort in ourselves ; self-contemplation, in- 
stead of gazing upon God. 

He is not affected by our mutability ; our 
changes do not alter Him. When we are rest- 
less, He remains serene and calm ; when we 
are low, selfish, mean, or dispirited, He is still 
the unalterable I Am, — the same yesterday, to- 
day, and forever, in whom is no variableness, 



98 Breathings of the Better Life. 

neither shadow of turning. What God is in 
Himself, — not what we may chance to feel 
Him in this or that moment to be, — that is 
our hope. "My soul, hope thou in God? 

F. W. Robertson. 



Not Thou from us, O Lord, but we 
Withdraw ourselves from Thee. 

When we are dark and dead, 
And Thou art covered with a cloud 
Hanging before Thee, like a shroud, 
So that our prayers can find no way, 
O, teach us that we do not say, 

"Where is Thy brightness fled?" 

But that we search and try 
What in ourselves has wrought this blame; 
For Thou remainest still the same : 
But earth's own vapors earth may fill, 
With darkness and thick clouds, while still 

The sun is in the sky. 

R. C. Trench. 



Shadows, 



99 



It fortifies my soul to know 

That, though I perish, Truth is so ; 

That, howsoe'er I stray and range, 

Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change, 

I steadier step when I recall 

That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall. 

A. H. Clough. 



IOO 



Breathings of the Better Life, 



" When I said, My foot slippeth ; thy mercy, O Lord, held 

me up." _ . _ 

Psalm :xciv. 18. 

The reason why there are so many phases, 
or seeming lapses, in Christian experience, is, 
not because it is false, but oftener because it 
is genuine ; because God has really dawned up- 
on the soul's faith, and kindled a fire super- 
natural in its love. Hence, to settle it in this 
high relation, as a properly known relation, is a 
work of much time and difficulty. The prob- 
lem is neither more nor less than to learn the 
way of God, and come into practical acquaint- 
ance with Him. And how can this be done 
without a large experience of defeat and dis- 
asters endlessly varied ? How can a being so 
weak and ignorant, knowing, at first, almost 
nothing of the high relations into which he has 
come, learn to walk evenly with God, save as 
he is instructed by many waverings, reactions, 
irregularities, and throes of losing experience ? 
Grazing in the pasture-ground of a mere hu- 



Shadows. 



101 



man culture, we might show more plausibly ; 
but now we move irregularly, just because we 
are in a level where the experience of nature 
does not instruct us. We lose ground, fall 
out of place, subside and waver, just because 
we are after something transcendent, something 
above us ; climbing up unto God, to rest our 
eternity in him, — a being whom, as yet, we 
do not sufficiently know, and whom to know 
is life eternal. 

The more difficulties one has to encounter, 
within and without, the more significant and 
the higher in inspiration his life will be. The 
very troubles that others look on with pity, as 
if he had taken up a kind of piety more per- 
ilous and burdensome than was necessary, will 
be his fields of victory, and his course of life 
will be just as much happier, as it is more 
consciously heroic. - He has something great to 
live for, nay, something worthy even to die for, 
if he must, — that which makes it glorious to 
live, and not less glorious to die. 

H. BUSHNELL. 



102 Breathings of the Better Life. 



"'Is this the way, my Father?' Tis, my child. 
Thou must pass through the tangled, dreary wild, 
If thou wouldst reach the city undefiled, — 
Thy peaceful home above. 

"'But enemies are round.' Yes, child, I know 
That where thou least expect'st thou 'It find a foe ; 
But victor thou shalt prove o'er all below,— 
Only, seek strength above. 

" ' My Father, it is dark.' Child, take my hand ; 
Cling close to me, — I '11 lead thee through the land ; 
Trust my all-seeing care, — so shalt thou stand 
'Mid glory bright above. 

" ' My footsteps seem to slide.' Child, only raise 
Thine eye to me, then in these slippery ways, 
I will hold up thy goings; thou shalt praise 
Me for each step above. 

" \ Father, I 'rn weary ! ' Child, then lean thy head 
Upon my breast ; it was my love that spread 
Thy rugged path j hope on, till I have said, 
' Rest, rest for aye, above ! ' " 



Shadows. 



103 



" He is of God who heareth the words of God." 

John viii. 47. 

Dear children, ye ought not to cease from 
hearing or declaring the word of God because 
you do not always live according to it, or keep 
it in mind. For inasmuch as you love it and 
crave after it, it will assuredly be given unto 
you; and you shall enjoy it forever with God, 
according to the measure of your desire after it. 

St. Bernard has said: " Man, if thou desirest 
a noble and holy life, and unceasingly prayest 
to God for it, if thou continue constant in 
this thy desire, it will be granted unto thee 
without fail, even if only in the day or hour 
of thy death ; and if God should not give it 
thee then, thou wilt find it in Him in eter- 
nity ; of this be assured." 

Therefore do not relinquish your desire, though 
it be not fulfilled immediately, or though ye 
may swerve from your aspirations, or even for- 
get them for a time. But when ye hear the 



104 Breathings of the Better Life. 

word of God, surrender yourselves to it, as if for 
eternity, with a full purpose of will to retain it 
in your mind, and to order your life according 
to it; and let it sink down right deep into your 
heart as into an eternity. If afterward it should 
come to pass that you let it slip, yet the love 
and aspiration which once really existed live 
forever before God, and in Him ye shall find 
the fruit thereof; that is, to all eternity it shall 
be better for you than if you had never felt 
them. 

What we can do is a small thing ; but 
we can will and aspire to great things. s Thus, 
if a man cannot be great, he can be good in 
will ; and what he, with his whole heart and 
mind, love and desire, wills to be, that without 
doubt he most truly is. It is little we can 
bring to pass, but our will and desire may be 
large. Nay, they may grow till they lose them- 
selves in the infinite abyss of God. 

John Tauler. 



Shadows. 



Thou, O Elder Brother, who 

In thy flesh our trial knew, 

Thou, who hast been touched by these 

Our most sad infirmities,— 

Change the dream of me and mine 

For the truth of Thee and Thine, 

And, through chaos, doubt, and strife, 

Interfuse thy calm of life ! 

If I may not, sin-defiled, 

Claim my birthright as a child, 

Suffer it that I to Thee 

As a hired servant be ; 

Let the lowliest task be mine, 

Grateful, so the work be Thine. 

If there be some weaker one, 

Give me strength to help him on ; 

If a blinder soul there be, 

Let me guide him nearer Thee. 

Make my mortal dreams come true 

With the work I fain would do ; 

Clothe with life the weak intent; 

Let me be the thing I meant ; 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

Let me find in Thy employ 
Peace that dearer is than joy; 
Out of self to love be led 
And to heaven acclimated, 
Until all things sweet and good 
Seem my natural habitude. 

J. G. Whittier. 



THE TRUE LIGHT. 



O Jesus ! Light of all below, 

Thou Fount of life and fire, — 
Surpassing all the joys we know, 

All that we can desire, — 
Stay with us, Lord ! and with Thy light 

Illume the soul's abyss ; 
Scatter the darkness of our night, 

And fill the world with bliss. 

Saint Bernard. 



THE TRUE LIGHT. 



"That I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine 
own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through 
the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." 

Philippians iii. 8, 9. 

IT is recorded of one of the world's gifted 
painters, that he stood before the master- 
piece of the great genius of his age, — one which 
he could never hope to equal, nor even rival, 
— and yet the infinite superiority, so far from 
crushing him, only elevated his feeling, for he 
saw realized those conceptions which had floated 
before him, dim and unsubstantial; in every 
line and touch he felt a spirit immeasurably 
superior, yet kindred, and is reported to have 
exclaimed, with dignified humility, "And I too 
am a painter!" We must all have felt, 
when certain effects in nature, combinations of 



no Breathings of the Better Life. 

form and color, have been presented to us, our 
own idea speaking in intelligible and yet celes- 
tial language ; when, for instance, the long bars 
of purple, "edged with intolerable radiance," 
seemed to float in a sea of pale pure green, — 
when the whole sky seemed to reel with thun- 
der ; when the night-wind moaned. It is won- 
derful how the most commonplace men and 
women are elevated by such scenes ; how the 
slumbering grandeur of their nature wakes and 
acknowledges kindred with the sky and storm. 
" I cannot speak," they would say, " the feelings 
which are in me ; I have had emotions, aspi- 
rations, thoughts ; I cannot put them into words. 
Look there ! Listen now to the storm ! That 
is what I meant, only I could never say it out 
till now." Thus do art and nature speak for 
us, and thus do we adopt them as our own. 
This is the way in which His righteousness 
becomes righteousness for us. This is the way 
in" which the heart presents to God the sacrifice 
of Christ; gazing on that perfect Life, we, as 



The True Light. 



in 



it were, say, "That is my religion, — that is my 
righteousness,— what I want to be, which I am 
not, — that is my offering, my life as I would 
wish to give it, freely and not checked, entire 
♦ and perfect." So the old prophets, their hearts 
big with unutterable thoughts, searched "what or 
what manner of time the spirit of Christ which 
was in them did signify, when it testified be- 
forehand of the sufferings of Christ and of the 
glory which should follow"; and so with us, 
until it passes into prayer: 

" My Saviour, fill up the blurred and blotted 
sketch which my clumsy hand has drawn of a 
divine life, with the fulness of Thy perfect pic- 
ture. I feel the beauty which I cannot real- 
ize : robe me in Thine unutterable purity!" 

" Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
Let me hide myself in Thee." 

F. W. Robertson. 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

Jesus, the very thought of Thee 

With gladness fills my breast ; 
But dearer far Thy face to see, 

And in Thy presence rest. 

Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame, 

Nor can the memory find 
A sweeter sound than thy blest name, 

O Saviour of mankind ! 

O hope of every contrite heart! 

O joy of all the meek ! 
To those who fall, how kind Thou art ; 

How good to those who seek! 

And those who find Thee, find a bliss 
Nor tongue nor pen can show: 

The love of Jesus, — what it is, 
None but his loved ones know. 

Saint Bernard. 



The True Light. 113 

"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of 
the world." 

John i. 29. 

This one perfect character has come into 
our world, and lived in it ; filling all the moulds 
of action, all the terms of duty and love, with 
his own divine manners, works, and charities. 
All the conditions of our life are raised thus, 
by the meaning he has shown to be in them, 
and the grace he has put upon them. 

The world itself is changed, and is no more 
the same that it was ; it has never been the 
same, since Jesus left it. The air is charged 
with heavenly odors, and a kind of celestial 
consciousness, a sense of other worlds, is wafted 
on us in its breath. Let the dark ages come, 
let society roll backward and churches perish 
in whole regions of the earth, let infidelity de- 
ny, and, what is worse, let spurious piety dis- 
honor, the truth ; still there is a something 
here that was not, and a something that has 
8 



U4 Breathings of the Better Life. 

immortality in it. Still our confidence remains 
unshaken, that Christ and his all-quickening 
life are in the world as fixed elements, and 
will be to the end of time; for Christianity 
is not so much the advent of a better doc- 
trine, as of a perfect character; and how can 
a perfect character, once entered into life and 
history, be separated and finally expelled? 

It were easier to untwist all the beams of 
light in the sky, separating and expunging one 
of the colors, than to get the character of 
Jesus, which is the real Gospel, out of the 
world. Look ye hither, meantime, all ye blinded 
and fallen of mankind, a better nature is among 
you, a pure heart, out of some pure world, is 
come into your prison, and walks it with you. 
Do you require of us to show who he is, and 
definitely to expound his person? We may 
not be able. Enough to know that he is not 
0 f us ^ — S ome strange being out of nature and 
above it, whose name is Wonderful. Enough 
that sin has never touched his hallowed nature, 



The True Light. 115 

and that he is a friend. In him dawns a hope, 
— purity has not come into our world except 
to purify. "Behold the Lamb of God that 
taketh away the sins of the world!'' Light 
breaks in, peace settles on the air ; lo ! the 
prison walls are giving way, — rise, let us go ! 

H. BUSHNELL. 



To thee, to all, my sinking voice, 
Belove'd, would once more proclaim, 

In Christ alone mayest thou rejoice, 
Deceived by every other name. 

In all but Him our sins have been, 

And wanderings dark of doubtful mind : 

In Him alone on earth is seen 
God's perfect will for all mankind. 

Sterling. 



n6 Breathings of the Better Life, 



" I have loved thee with an everlasting love ; therefore with 
loving-kindness have I drawn thee." 

Jeremiah xxxi. 3. 

Too late I loved Thee, O Thou Beauty of 
ancient days, yet ever new, — too late I loved 
Thee ! For Thou wert within and I abroad ; 
there I searched for Thee, — I, in my deform- 
ity, plunging among the fair forms which Thou 
hadst made. Thou wert with me, but I was 
not with Thee. Things held me far from Thee, 
which, unless they were in Thee were not at 
all. 

Thou didst call, and shout, and didst burst 
through my deafness. Thou didst flash, and 
shine, and scatter my blindness. Thou didst 
breathe forth odors, and with every breath 
I draw I pant for Thee. I tasted, and I hun- 
ger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I 
yearned for Thy peace. 

Where hast Thou not walked with me, O 
Truth, teaching me what to beware, and what 



The True Light, 



117 



to desire, when I referred to Thee whatever 
I could discover in this earthly state? Nor 
in all these things can I find any safe place 
for my soul, but only in Thyself ; there may my 
scattered members be gathered, so that nothing 
of me shall be separated from Thee. 

And sometimes Thou admittest me to an un- 
usual affection, felt in my inmost soul, and 
rising to a strange sweetness, which, if it were 
perfected in me, I know not what in it would 
not belong to the life to come. 

O Truth who art Eternity! and Love who 
art Truth ! and Eternity who art Love ! Thou 
art my God: to Thee do I cry night and 
day! 

Confessions of Saint Augustine. 



3 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



" Long had my tears of penitence 

From sleepless eyes been falling ; 
Long had I heard the angel-voice 

That through my soul kept calling; 
One night I watched the shapeless clouds 

That o'er my mind were rolling, 
Till the clock's slow and measured tones 

The hour of twelve were tolling. 

"Then o'er the loved disciple's page 

Was I my vigil keeping: 
I read, and mused, and read again, 

While all the world was sleeping : 
And as I mused, I felt a fire 

Within me gently glowing; 
Passion sunk low, as drooping gales 

At hush of eve stop blowing. 

"The clouds that o'er my spirit hung 
Gave sweet and gentle warning; 
They changed to white and purpling flakes 
As at the dawn of morning ; 



The True Light. 



And then looked through the countenance, 
Clothed in its sun-bright splendor, 

Of Him who o'er His saints of old 
Kept holy watch and tender. 

" His robe was white as flakes of snow 

When through the air descending; 
I saw the clouds beneath Him melt, 

And rainbows o'er him bending; — 
And then a voice, — no, not a voice,— 

A deep and calm revealing 
Came through me like a vesper-strain 

O'er tranquil waters stealing. 

"And ever since, that countenance 

Is on my pathway shining; 
A sun from out a higher sky 

Whose light knows no declining. 
All day it falls upon my road, 

And keeps my feet from straying ; 
And when at night I lay me down 

I fall asleep while praying." 



120 Breathings of the Better Life, 

" Let thy work appear unto thy servants." 

Psalm xc. 16. 

It is the Cross that intensifies, that glorifies 
life, that opens up depth after depth in the 
human and in the Divine natures, and bridges 
over the depths which it has disclosed. Here 
only, at the foot of the Cross, can man really 
die, — here only, with his loving, his suffering 
Lord, can he lay down his life, that he may 
receive it again in Him. 

Show Thy servants Thy work, and their own 
will be indeed easy; for "in the blood is the 
life." We go on asking, What shall we do that 
we may inherit eternal life ? until, through the 
sudden shining of a light from heaven, or the 
gradual dawning of a day-star within our own 
hearts, we learn that our part is to live, to 
die, in the strength of that which has been 
already done. And it is remarkable that, until 
through the Spirit we feel Christ within us as 
one that is alive from the dead, the fact of His 



The True Light. 



121 



death seems to affect us but little. Though no 
sorrow was ever like unto His sorrow, it is 
nothing to those that pass by, — a story often 
told, — an accepted history. Only to those who 
believe is Christ precious, for they only know 
their Lord in the fellowship of His sufferings, 
in the power of His resurrection. 

True self-renunciation, much as has been said 
and written about it, is not easy. No sight, 
short of that great one of sacrifice and love, 
can turn the heart from its own works, to fix 
it upon the one work through which the spirit- 
ual man is aware that his very imperfection is 
accepted. For all men seek and love their own. 
The natural man cleaves to his own works and 
efforts, as being part of that body of self which 
no man ever yet hated; and from this natural 
adhesion there is no escape save in rising to a 
state of being wherein frail, self-seeking mortal- 
ity is to be swallowed up in a divine life. 
Then being made partaker of a life in which 
Christ is his own, it becomes natural, and, as it 



122 Breathings of the Better Life. 



were, an instinct, to love and cleave to Him. 
It is the soul's natural life. 

A Present Heaven. 

I look to Thee in every need, 

And never look in vain ; 
I feel Thy strong and tender love, 

And all is well again : 
The thought of Thee is mightier far 
Than sin and pain and sorrow are. 

Discouraged in the work of life, 

Disheartened by its load, 
Shamed by its failures or its fears, 

I sink beside the road ; — 
But let me only think of Thee, 
And then new heart springs up in me. 

Thy calmness bends serene above, 

My restlessness to still; 
Around me flows Thy quickening life, 

To nerve my faltering will ; 
Thy presence fills my solitude; 
Thy providence turns all to good. 

Hymns of the Spirit. 



The True Light 



123 



" Unto you. that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness 
arise with healing in his wings." ^ ^ 

Christ is the Lord our Righteousness. He 
did not come down to earth to lead a holy and 
righteous life for His own sake. He was all 
holiness and all righteousness from the begin- 
ning, yea, from all eternity, dwelling in the 
bosom of the Father, full of grace and truth. 
But He came down to earth to lead a holy and 
righteous life for our sakes, in order that we 
might become sharers in His righteousness, and 
that so He might raise us along with himself 
to His Father and ours. It was for us that 
He was born ; for us He went about doing good 
patiently and unweariedly in spite of hatred 
and scorn and persecution ; for us He bore all 
the hardships and crosses of life; for us He 
submitted to be tempted; for us He overcame 
sin ; for us He allowed the shadow of death to 
flit over His eternal spirit; for us He burst 



124 Breathings of the Better Life. 

the bonds of death ; it was for us, too, that He 
went up openly to His Father, and sent His 
Holy Spirit to convince us of His righteous- 
ness ; for us also does He ever sit, the Sun of 
Righteousness, in the heavens. When the sun 
rises to convince the world of light, he does 
not keep his light to himself: he does not 
journey through the sky merely to convince the 
world that he himself is light. He sheds his 
light abroad on all that will unfold themselves 
to receive it. So, too, does the Sun of Right- 
eousness. On all who will open their hearts 
to receive it, He sheds His righteousness ; he 
pours it into them, that they may have it in 
themselves, and manifest it to each other, and 
behold it in each other. 

When we are thoroughly convinced that 
Christ's righteousness is ours, the righteousness 
which He purposes to bestow upon mankind, — 
that He came not for His own sake, but for 
ours, in order that He might give us all that 
we lack out of His exceeding abundance, — then 



The True Light. 



125 



indeed a bright ray of joy and comfort darts 
through the heart, startling the frost-bound wa- 
ters out of their year-long sleep. Then the soul, 
which before was as a wilderness and a solitary 
place, — solitary, because God was far from it,— 
yea, the barren desert of the heart rejoices and 
blossoms as the rose. All its hidden powers, 
all its suppressed feelings, so long smothered by 
the unresisted blasts of the world, unfold like 
rose-leaves before the Sun of Righteousness; 
and each and all are filled and transpierced with 

His gladdening, beautifying light. 

Mission of the Comforter. 



Wilt Thou not visit me? 
The plant beside me feels Thy gentle dew ; 

Each blade of grass I see 
From thy deep earth its quickening moisture drew. 



Wilt Thou not visit me? 
The morning calls on me with cheering tone; 



126 Breathings of the Better Life. 

And every hill and tree 
Lend but one voice, the voice of Thee alone. 

Come! for I need Thy love 
More than the flower the dew, or grass the rain. 

Come, like Thy holy dove, 
And let me in thy sight rejoice to live again! 

Yes ; Thou wilt visit me ! 
Nor plant nor tree Thine eye delights so well, 

As when, from sin set free, 
Man's spirit comes with Thine in peace to dwell. 

Jones Very. 



BEARING THE CROSS. 



" 0 Cross, we hail thy bitter reign ; 
O come, thou well-beloved guest, 
Whose sorest sufferings work not pain, 
Whose heaviest burden is but rest ! " 



By the thom-road, and no other, 
Is the mount of triumph won ; 

Tread it without shrinking, brother 
Jesus trod it : press thou on ! 

S. Johnson. 



BEARING THE CROSS. 



"He saved others; himself he cannot save." 

Matthew xxvii. 42. 

SACRIFICE is the law of being. It is a 
mysterious and a fearful thing to observe 
how all God's universe is built upon this law, 
how it penetrates and pervades all Nature, so 
that if it were to cease, Nature would cease to 
exist Hearken to the Saviour himself expound- 
ing this principle : — 

" Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground 
and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die, it bring- 
eth forth much fruit." We are justified, there- 
fore, in assuming the law of Nature to be the 
law of His own sacrifice, for He himself repre- 
sents it as the parallel. 

Observe this world of God's. The mountain 



130 Breathings of the Better Life. 

rock must have its surface rusted into putres- 
cence, and become dead soil, before the herb can 
grow. The destruction of the mineral is the life 
of the vegetable. Out of the soil in which de- 
ciduous leaves are buried the young tree shoots 
vigorously, and strikes its roots deep down into 
the realms of decay and death. Upon the life 
of the vegetable world the myriad forms of high- 
er life sustain themselves ; — still the same law, 
the sacrifice of life for life. 

It is as impossible for man to live as it is for 
man to be redeemed, except through vicarious 
suffering. His very being has its roots in the 
law of sacrifice, and from his birth onwards, in- 
stinctively this becomes the law which rules his 
existence. No blessing was ever enjoyed by 
man which did not come through this law. 
There was never a country cleared for civiliza- 
tion, and purified of its swamps and forests, but 
the first settlers paid the penalty of that which 
their successors enjoy. There was never a vic- 
tory won but the conquerors passed over the 



Bearing the Cross. 131 

bodies of the noblest slain, who died that they 
might win. 

All this is the law obeyed unconsciously or 
instinctively. But, in the redemption of our 
humanity, a moment comes when the law is 
recognized as the will of God, adopted con- 
sciously, and voluntarily obeyed as the law of 
man's existence. Then it is that man's true 
nobleness, his only possible blessedness, and his 
redemption from blind instincts and mere self- 
ishness begin. The Highest Man recognized 
that law, and joyfully embraced it. Hear him: 
"No man taketh my life from me. I have 
power to lay it down, and I have power to take 
it again." "This commandment have I received 
of my Father." 

Estimate rightly the death of Christ. It was 
not simply the world's example, — it was the 
world's sacrifice. He died not merely as a 
martyr to the truth: His death is the world's 
life. Ask you what life is? Life is elevation 
of soul, nobleness, Divine character. The spirit 



132 Breathings of the Better Life. 



of Christ was life; to give, and not to re- 
ceive. 

Hear him again: "He that loseth his life, 
the same shall find it." That is life, the spirit 
of losing all for Love's sake. That is the soul's 
life, which alone is blessedness and heaven. 

F. W. Robertson. 



It was no path of flowers, 

Through this dark world of ours, 
Beloved of the Father, Thou didst tread ; 

And shall we in dismay 

Shrink from the narrow way, 
When clouds and darkness are around it spread? 

O Thou who art our Life, 

Be with us through the strife! 
Thine own meek head was by earth's tempests bowed. 

Raise thou our eyes above 

To see a Father's love 
Beam, like the bow of promise, through the cloud I 



Bearing the Cross. 



133 



Even through the awful gloom 

Which hovers o'er the tomb 
That light of love our guiding star shall be : 

Our spirits shall not dread 

The shadowy way to tread, 
Friend, Guardian, Saviour ! which doth lead to Thee ! 

S. E. Miles. 



134 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



" But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father 
shall send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and shall 
bring all things to remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto 

y° u -" T • * 

John xiv. 26 

Often years will pass away, over us as over 
the disciples, long years, during which we may 
hear the word of the Lord daily, and yet are 
not penetrated thoroughly thereby. He ever- 
more opens the fountains of His grace, to re- 
fresh us with His life-giving water; but we let 
it dry up without drinking it into our hearts. 
We feel indeed that he is holding out something 
grand and glorious ; and we take pleasure in 
His words : but that which is deepest and most 
precious in them is totally lost to us, because our 
sense for it has not yet been awakened. He 
has so many things to say to us ; but we cannot 
bear them yet; for the life-giving spirit has 
not come and enlightened us. We often pass 
on blindly, when He desires to give us His 
richest and most glorious revelations: often we 




Bearing the Cross. 



are unable to understand what He means, when 
He addresses us with His deep, spiritual words. 

Whence comes this ? whence, except that we, 
like His first disciples, want that experience of 
life which alone can open our minds to receive 
His deeper meaning. For he who knows not 
the world and its manifold complicated relations 
from his own observation, — he who has not yet 
felt the insecurity and mutability of this tran- 
sitory existence, — he who has never jet been 
tossed to and fro by the storms of life, and so 
has had little occasion to look beyond this tem- 
poral to an eternal state, — such a person can 
understand but little of Him who came for this 
very purpose, to bring mankind to eternal life : 
his life will be like a smooth surface, into which 
the healing waters of the Gospel cannot enter, 
and from which they glide off without effect. 

O, they will come for us too, the more our 
outward sphere of life unfolds and widens, — 
they will come, the days of heavy sorrow, the 
dark hours when we shall see what was dearest 



136 Breathings of the Better Life, 

and most precious to us on this earth vanish 
away, — the heavy, crushing state, in which we 
can find neither counsel nor comfort, — they will 
come, the times of distress, in which our human 
neighbors have neither power nor will to help 
us. But along with them comes the Holy 
Spirit, whom the Saviour promised to send, and 
lifts up mans downcast eyes from temporal 
things to eternal ; He raises the quaking heart 
to prayer, and intercedes for it with unutterable 
groanings ; He purifies, comforts, and strength- 
ens it ; and through the clouds which surround 
us He shows us the bright form of the Saviour, 
and places us beneath the rays of His eternal 
light. 

Thenceforward we understand, far otherwise 
than before, what He meant when He called 
upon us to enter into the communion of His 
sufferings, and to be fashioned after the like- 
ness of His death. The Word of Life comes 
suddenly before our soul in wonderful clear- 
ness ; and the sorrowing heart finds therein, 



Bearing the Cross. 



137 



what the glad heart did not seek, a sacred, in- 
exhaustible fountain of everlasting life, and that 
rich, heavenly consolation which the world can- 



0 Saviour! whose mercy, severe in its kindness, 
Has chastened my wanderings and guided my way, 

Adored be the power which illumined my blindness, 
And weaned me from phantoms that smiled to be- 
tray. 

1 thought that the course of the pilgrim to heaven 
Would be bright as the sun, and as glad as the morn: 

Thou show'dst me the path, — it was dark and uneven, 
All rugged with rock and all tangled with thorn. 

I dreamed of celestial rewards and renown ; 

I grasped at the triumph which blesses the brave ; 
I asked for the palm-branch, the robe, and the crown ; 

I asked, and Thou show'dst me a cross and a grave. 

Subdued and instructed, at length to Thy will 
My hopes and my longings I fain would resign, 



138 Breathings of the Better Life. 

O give me the heart that can wait and be still, 
Nor know of a wish or a pleasure but Thine ! 

There are mansions exempted from sin and from woe, 
But they stand in a region by mortals untrod ! 

There are rivers of joy, but they roll not below; 
There is rest, but it dwells in the presence of God. 

R. Grant. 



Bearing the Cross. 



139 



" I am not alone, because the Father is with me." 

John xvi. 32. 

There is a feeble and sentimental way in 
which we speak of the Man of Sorrows. We 
turn to the cross, and the agony, and the lone- 
liness, to touch the softer feelings, to arouse 
compassion. Compassion ! Compassion for Him ! 
Adore if you will, — respect and reverence that 
sublime solitariness with which none but the 
Father was, — but no pity; let it draw out the 
firmer and manlier graces of the soul ! 

The Saviours solitariness was not the trial of 
the lonely hermit. There is a certain gentle 
and pleasing melancholy in the life which is 
lived alone. But there are the forms of nature 
to speak to him ; and he has not the positive 
opposition of mankind, if he has the absence of 
actual sympathy. But the solitude of Christ was 
the solitude of a crowd. In that single bosom 
dwelt the Thought which was to be the germ 
of the world's life, — a thought unshared, mis- 
understood, or rejected. 



140 Breathings of the Better Life. 

This is self-reliance, — to repose calmly on the 
thought which is deepest in our bosoms, and be 
unmoved if the world will not accept it yet. 
To live on your own convictions against the 
world is to overcome the world ; to believe 
that what is truest in you is true for all; to 
abide by that, certain that while you stand firm, 
the world will come round to you, — that is in- 
dependence. It is not difficult to get away into 
retirement, and there live upon your own con- 
victions ; nor is it difficult to mix with men, 
and follow their convictions ; but to enter into 
the world, and there live firmly and fearlessly 
according to your own conscience, — that is 
Christian greatness. 

We shrink from the consequences of truth. 
We look round and cling dependently. We ask 
what men will think, what they will say. The 
Father, — the Father which is with us and in 
USy — w hat does He think? God's work cannot 
be done without a spirit of independence. A 
man is got some way in the Christian life when 



Bearing the Cross, 



141 



he has learned to say humbly, and yet majesti- 
cally, "I dare to be alone." 

Whatever timid minds may think, there is 
here no danger of mistake, if the character be 
a true one. For we are not in uncertainty in 
this matter. It has been given us to know our 
base from our noble hours; to distinguish be- 
tween the voice which is from above, and that 
which speaks from below, out of the abyss of 
our animal and selfish nature. Doubtless deep 
truth of character is required for this: for the 
whispering voices get mixed together, and we 
dare not abide by our own thoughts, because 
we think them our own, and not God's: and 
this because we only now and then endeavor 
to know in earnest. It is only given to the 
habitually true to know the difference. Christ 
knew it; He could say, "My judgment is just, 
because I seek not my own will, but the will 
of Him which sent me." 

F. W. Robertson. 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



They call me haughty, of opinion proud, 

Untaught to bend a stubborn will ; 
Ah, little dreams the shallow-hearted crowd 

What thoughts this bosom fill, 
What loneliness this outer strength doth hide, 

What longing lies beneath this calm, 
For human sympathy so long untried, 

Our earth's divinest balm. 

But more than sympathy the truth I prize ; 

Above my friendships hold I God; 
And stricken be these feet ere they despise 

The path their Master trod. 
So let my banner be again unfurled, 

Again its cheerless motto seen, 
"The world against me, I against the world' 

Judge Thou, dear Christ, between ! 

"Athanasius contra mundum. 



Bearing the Cross. 



143 



Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth." 

Hebrews xii. 6. 

Yes, who can venture to deny it? There 
are sufferings in the world, the spectacle of 
which tempts us to doubt the rule of an All- 
just Providence, and the value of piety and vir- 
tue ; when our faith and trust give way, and 
unconquerable melancholy takes possession of 
the soul. 

Yet, however furiously the storms of life may 
rage around us, though every door of escape 
may seem closed against us, though the light 
on our path through life be extinguished, though 
the last friend depart from us, though our grief 
and distress may have reached their climax, 
life and death be struggling for mastery within 
US) _God is still our God! That which He 
withholds from our earthly part will form the 
strength of our immortal soul ; that which we 
have lost, and may still lose, was and is only 
transitory, and to lose it we must all be pre- 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



pared ; but our spirits are enriched by the be- 
reavement, are brought closer to God thereby. 

Therefore courage, unswerving principle, and 
faith, even in the hour of bitterest trial ! 

Who has ever promised that thy sweet dreams 
should prove eternal? And even if, like Job, 
thou hast been deprived of thy best, thy all, 
what is it thou hast lost ? Mere dust and ashes ! 
The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away ! 

And all suffering at length conduces to the 
triumph of the victorious spirit, and opens to it 
a more glorious career in eternity. God is just ! 
Throughout the creation there is nothing wrong 
or unjust. Everything leads upward to a glo- 
rious end. God the rewarder lives. 

ZSCHOKKE. 



I know not if or dark or bright 

Shall be my lot ; 
If that wherein my hopes delight 

Be best, or not. 



Bearing the Cross, 



145 



My bark is wafted to the strand 

By breath divine, 
And on the helm there rests a hand 

Other than mine. 

One who has known in storms to sail 

I have on board; 
Above the raving of the gale 

I hear my Lord. 

He holds me when the billows smite, — 

I shall not fall. 
If sharp, 't is short, — if long, \ is light, — 

He tempers all. 

Safe to the land, safe to the land, — 

The end is this ; 
And then with Him go hand in hand 

Far into bliss. 

Dean of Canterbury. 



io 



146 Breathings of the Better Life. 

" Every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, that it may 

bring forth more fruit." 

0 John xv. 2. 

Sorrow sobers us, and makes the mind genial. 
And in sorrow we love and trust our friends 
more tenderly, and the dead become dearer to 
us. And just as the stars shine out in the night, 
so there are blessed faces that look at us in our 
grief, though before their features were fading 
from our recollection. Suffering! Let no man 
dread it too much, because it is good for him, 
and it will help to make him sure of his being 
immortal. It is not in the bright, happy day, 
but only in the solemn night, that other worlds 
are to be seen shining in their long, long dis- 
tances. And it is in sorrow — the night of the 
soul — that we see farthest, and know ourselves 
natives of infinity and sons and daughters of 
the Most High. 

EUTHANASY. 

Suffering well borne is better than suffering 
removed. I know enough of gardening to un- 



Bearing the Cross. 



147 



derstand that if I would have a tree grow upon 
its south side, I must cut off the branches there. 
Then all its forces go to repairing the injury, 
and twenty buds shoot out where otherwise there 
would have been but one. When we reach the 
garden above, we shall find that out of those 
very wounds over which we sighed and groaned 
on earth, have sprung verdant branches, bearing 
precious fruit, a thousand-fold. 

H. W. Beecher. 



Our Lord God doth like a printer, who set- 
teth the letters backwards: we see and feel 
well his setting, but we shall read the print 
yonder, in the life to come. 

Martin Luther. 



What, many times I musing asked, is man, 

If grief and care 
Keep far from him? he knows not what he can, 

What cannot, bear. 



148 Breathings of the Better Life. 



He, till the fire hath purged him, doth remain 

Mixed all with dross : 
To lack the loving discipline of pain 

Were endless loss. 

Yet, when my Lord did ask me on what side 

I were content, 
The grief, whereby I must be purified, 

To me were sent, 

As each imagined anguish did appear, 

Each withering bliss 
Before my soul, I cried, " O spare me here ! 

O no, not this ! " 

Like one that having need of, deep within, 

The surgeon's knife, 
Would hardly bear that it should graze the skin, 

Though for his life. 

Nay then; but He, who best doth understand 

Both what we need 
And what can bear, did take my case in hand, 

Nor crying heed. 

Songs in the Night. 



Bearing the Cross. 



"For the love of Christ constraineth us." 

2 Corinthians v. 14. 

The death of Christ was a representation of 
the life of God. The whole of the life of God 
is the sacrifice of self. God is love; love is 
sacrifice, — to give rather than to receive, — the 
blessedness of self-giving. If the life of God 
were not such, it would be a falsehood to say 
that God is Love. 

If man is to rise into the life of God, he must 
be absorbed into the spirit of that sacrifice ; he 
must die with Christ, if he would enter into his 
proper life. For sin is the withdrawing into 
self and egotism, out of the vivifying life of 
God, which alone is our true life. 

Self-denial, self-sacrifice, self-surrender! Hard 
doctrines, and impossible! We sceptically ask, 
"Is this possible? is it natural? Let preacher 
and moralist say what they will, I am not here 
to sacrifice myself for others. God sent me here 
for happiness, not for misery." Read these words, 



150 Breathings of the Better Life. 

and the dark doctrine becomes illuminated, — 
" The love of Christ constraineth us." Self-denial, 
for the sake of self-denial, does no good ; self- 
sacrifice for its own sake is no religious act at 
all. If you give up a meal for the sake of show- 
ing power over self, or for the sake of self-dis- 
cipline, you are not more religious than before. 
This is mere self-culture, which, being occupied 
forever about self, leaves you only in that cir- 
cle of self from which religion is to free you ; 
but to give up a meal that one you love may 
have it, is properly a religious act, — no hard 
and dismal duty, because made easy by affection. 
To bear pain for the sake of bearing it has in 
it no moral quality at all ; but to bear it rather 
than surrender truth, or in order to save another, 
is positive enjoyment, as well as ennoblipg to 
the soul. Did you ever receive even a blow 
meant for another in order to shield that other ? 
Do you not know that there was actual pleas- 
ure in that keen pain far beyond the most rap- 
turous thrill of nerve which could be gained from 



Bearing the Cross. 



pleasure in the midst of painlessness ? Is not 
the mystic yearning of love expressed in words 
most purely thus, — Let me suffer for him? 

This element of love is that which makes this 
doctrine an intelligible and blessed truth. Sac- 
rifice alone, bare and unrelieved, is ghastly, un- 
natural, and dead; but self-sacrifice, illuminated 
by love, is warmth and life; it is the death of 
Christ, the life of God, the blessedness and only 
proper life of man. 

F. W. Robertson. 

I said, This task is keen. — 
But even while I spake, Thou, Love Divine, 

Didst stand behind, and gently overlean 

My drooping form; and oh! what task had been 
Too stern for feebleness with help of Thine ? 
Spell Thou this lesson with me line by line ! 

The sense is rigid, but the voice is dear. 
Guide Thou my hand within that hand of Thine, — 
Thy wounded hand! — until its tremblings take 
Strength from Thy touch, and even for Thy sake 

Trace out each character in outline clear. 

Dora Greenwell. 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

Have you never felt the pleasure 

Of forgiving fraud and wrong 
Rippling through your soul like measure 

Sweet of sweetest poet's song? 
Have you never felt that beauty 

Lies in pain for others borne, — 
That the sacredness of duty 

Bid you offer love for scorn? 
Tis the Christian, not the Stoic, 

That best triumphs over pain. 

Reverberations. 



THE NEW COMMANDMENT. 



The Hand that strews the earth with flowers 
Enriched the marriage-feast with wine ; 

The Hand once pierced for sins of ours 
This morning made the dew-drops shine. 

It freely gives its very best, 

Not barely what the need may be, 
But for the joy of making blest ; — 

Teach us to love and give like Thee I 

Not narrowly men's claims to measure, 

But daily question all our powers, 
" To whose cup can we add a pleasure ? 

Whose path can we make bright with flowers? " 

Three Wakings. 



THE NEW COMMANDMENT. 



" He saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son ! Then 
saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother ! " 



TTEND carefully to these words. They 



contain nothing less than the record of a 
new family relationship on earth. In this fel- 
lowship Christ is the .head, and all his believing 
people form one great, closely-connected family. 
The inner and most essential family feature of 
this spiritual fraternity is, that self in them is 
crucified, and Christ is the centre of all their 
doing and suffering. 

Let him who would envy John the pleasing 
task of being a support to the mother of Jesus, 
reflect on a previous expression of our Lord's : 
" Whoever shall do the will of my Father which 



John xix. 26, 27. 




156 Breathings of the Better Life. 

is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, 
and mother." 

If thou art really desirous of the privilege 
enjoyed by John, be, from love to the Lord, a 
faithful helper to His children. Become feet 
to the lame, eyes to the blind, the counsellor 
and father of the orphan, and thou wilt be tak- 
ing His place on earth, as did his disciple of 
old. Only apply to Him to open thine eyes, 
that thou mayst recognize His quiet and holy 
household, and even as He will say of thee to 
those who form His spiritual church, "Woman, 
behold thy son!" so will He also say to thee, 
with reference to His weary and heavy-laden 
ones, "Behold thy mother!" 

For tell me, what would be wanting to make 
this world a kingdom of heaven, if that tender, 
profound, and self-denying love, practised and 
recommended by Jesus, were paramount in every 
heart ? Then the loftiest and most glorious idea 
of human society would be realized. 

Be convinced, therefore, that you are invited 



The New Commandment. 157 



and allowed by Jesus, not merely that you may 
be happy in heaven, but that, by doing His 
will, the earth may once more be transformed 
into a paradise. 

Krummacher. 

Meek Jesus, to my soul Thy spirit lending, 
Teach me to live, like Thee, in lowly love, 

With humblest service all Thy saints befriending 
Until I serve before Thy throne above. 

Yea, serving even my foes ; for Thou didst seek 

The feet of Judas in thy service meek. 

O blessed name of servant! comprehending 
Man's highest honor in his humblest name ; 

For Thou, God's Christ, the office recommending, 
The throne of mighty power didst truly claim. 

He who would rise like Thee, like Thee must owe 

His glory only to his stooping low. 

G. W. Bethune. 



i 5 8 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



" But love ye your enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for 
nothing again : and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be 
the children of the Highest: for He is kind to the unthankful 
and to the evil." Luke vi. 3 S- 

In a truly godlike man his love is pure and 
unmixed, and full of kindness, insomuch that he 
cannot but love in sincerity all men and things, 
and wish well and do good to them and rejoice 
in their welfare. Yea, let them do what they 
will to .such a man, do him wrong or kindness, 
bear him love or hatred, or the like, — yea, if 
one could kill such a man a thousand times over, 
he could not but love the very man who had 
so often slain him, although he had been treated 
so unjustly, and wickedly, and cruelly by him, 
and could not but wish well, and do well to him, 
and show him the very greatest kindness in his 
power, if the other would only receive and take 
it at his hands. 

The proof and witness whereof may be seen 
in Christ ; for he said to Judas, when he be- 



The New Commandment. 159 

trayed him, " Friend, wherefore art thou come ? " 
Just as if he had said, "Thou hatest me, and 
art my enemy, yet I love thee, and am thy friend. 
Thou desirest and rejoicest in my affliction, and 
dost the worst thou canst unto me, yet I desire 
and wish thee all good, and would fain give it 
thee, and do it for thee, if thou wouldst but 
take and receive it." 

As though God in human nature were say- 
ing, " I am pure, simple Goodness, and there- 
fore I cannot will, or desire, or rejoice in, or do 
or give anything but goodness. If I am to re- 
ward thee for thy evil and wickedness, I must 
do it with goodness, for I am and have nothing 
else." Hence therefore God, in a man who is 
made partaker of His nature, desireth and tak- 
eth no revenge for all the wrong that is or can 
be done unto him. This we see in Christ when 
he said, "Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do." 

Neither may a man who is made partaker of 
the divine nature, oppress or grieve any one. 



160 Breathings of the Better Life. 

That is, it never entereth into his thoughts, or in- 
tents, or wishes, to cause pain or distress to any, 
either by deed or neglect, by speech or silence. 

Theologia Germanica. 



"Ever patient, gentle, meek, 

Holy Saviour, was thy mind ; 
Vainly in myself I seek 

Likeness to my Lord to find; 
Yet that mind which was in Thee, 
May be, must be formed in me. 

« Days of toil 'mid throngs of men, 
Vexed not, ruffled not thy soul ; 
Still collected, calm, serene, 

Thou each feeling couldst control : 
Lord, that mind which was in Thee, 
May be, must be formed in me. 
"Though such griefs were Thine to bear, 
For each sufferer Thou couldst feel ; 
Every mourner's burden share, 

Every wounded spirit heal; 
Saviour, let thy grace in me 
Form that mind which was in Thee!" 



The New Commandment. 161 



"Faith, which worketh by love." 

Galatians v. 6. 

Love, in general, is but sickly ; that love 
which we learn in Christ, can alone be called 
healthy. This, indeed, is a healthy love, since 
it can actually forget the love of self. Ah, truly, 
that is no common thing to which our Lord 
refers, when he speaks of doing good ; the left 
hand not knowing what the right hand does ; 
the witness being that Eye only which seeth 
in secret. . . . How many there are who desire 
at least one witness of their good deeds, one at 
least who may hear them say, "This is mine." 

O, where are those noble souls to be found, 
who, all unconscious of themselves, daily pursue 
their career like the sun, which rises each morn- 
ing in the heavens, and scatters its gold to the 
left and to the right, on the mountains and in 
the valleys ; — those noble souls, that by an in- 
ward necessity here create and renew, there 
beautify and heal, and everywhere bless, like the 
ii 



162 Breathings of the Better Life. 

sun, that cannot but give light. There is but 
One, in whom such an image of high love has 
appeared to us in its entire purity, and it is 
only by faith in Him that such self-sacrificing 
love is produced. Thqluck _ 



O human heart! thou hast a song 
For all that to the earth belong, 
Whene'er the golden chain of love 
Hath linked thee to the heaven above. 

S. F. Adams. 



The New Commandment. 



163 



" At evening time it shall be light." 

Zechariah xiv. 7. 

Evening brings with it the thought of home 
and rest, the desire for communing around the 
hearth with those of our own family and house- 
hold. Many steps are now surely, though per- 
haps half instinctively seeking the Father's house ; 
there is a sound of home-going feet, a murmur 
of anxious, loving recognition. The approach 
of night brings with it a sense of need and de- 
pendence, and in this, the World's great even- 
ing, the heart has become more alive to the pul- 
sation which is ever at work throughout the 
whole of Christ's mystical Body, — a secret per- 
haps not to be entered upon very early in the 
believers day. For the characteristic of the 
religious or seeking soul is solitariness. It is 
the withdrawal of the soul into the wilderness, 
there, in that deepened sense of personal account- 
ability in which most religious convictions begin, 
to plead with God face to face, of individual 



1 64 Breathings of the Better Life. 

sin, for individual redemption ; its cry is, " Lord, 
save me, for I perish." The characteristic of 
the godly, the accepted soul, so joined unto the 
Lord as to be of one spirit with him, is fellow- 
ship ; in awaking up into Christ it awakes unto 
its brethren; its exclamation is that of the 
Psalmist, "Behold, there are many with me." 

And though the believer often seems, like his 
Master, to tread the wine-press alone, neither 
his conflicts nor his triumphs are ever really 
solitary. " Multitudes, multitudes," if unseen, are 
ever around him. Our Lord in his last solemn 
hour speaks of sanctifying himself for the sake 
of those whom the Father had given him, that 
they also might be sanctified through the truth ; 
and though we may be unable as yet to pierce 
to the heart of all that is included in those 
words, u Because I live, ye shall live also" we 
know enough even now to be aware that heaven 
and earth are drawn so much the nearer each 
other for every soul in living communion with 
Christ. As every waste and barren spot be- 



The New Commandment. 165 

comes a centre for noisome exhalations to gather 
in, a haunt for doleful creatures to repair to, 
so for every piece of territory reclaimed unto 
God, the whole garden of the Lord advances 
by so much nearer its final blossoming as the 

rose ' Patience of Hope. 



There is a multitude around 

Responsive to my prayer ; 
I hear the voice of my desire 

Resounding everywhere. 
But the earnest of eternal joy 

In every prayer I trace ; 
I see the glory of the Lord 

On every chastened face. 

How oft in still communion known, 
Those spirits have been sent 

To share the travail of my soul, 
Or show me what it meant ! 

And I long to do some work of love 
No spoiling hand could touch, 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

For the poor and suffering of Thy flock 
Who comfort me so much. 

My heart is resting, O my God, 

My heart is in Thy care ! 
I hear the voice of joy and health 

Resounding everywhere. 
" Thou art my portion ! " saith my soul, 

Ten thousand voices say, — 
And the music of their glad Amen 

Will never die away. 

Anna L. Waring. 



The New Commandment. 167 



" God is love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, 

and God in him." ... 

i John iv. 16. 

Since it is by love, an inward delightful emo- 
tion of the heart, % that a man enters into God, 
and God comes into man, he who has thus be- 
come God's must desire none other than God. 
And because God is love, and desires to dwell 
in others, He has opened His heart unto all 
creatures, and poured forth unto them as much 
of His goodness and beauty as they were able 
to receive ; so a man who has shared this love 
desires that his heart should ever stand open 
with thoughts of kindness to all about him, that 
on them may fall again what he has received 
from God. As a ray of light in a pure drop 
of water is divided into seven colors, so is it 
with love in a pure heart, it divides into more 
than sevenfold virtue ; yea, rather, all virtue 
springs from it alone. 

Love is greater than faith or hope, for be- 



1 68 . Breathings of the Better Life. 

yond that limit where faith and hope depart, 
love still remains. Love, which is the door 
through which God enters into the heart of 
man, and man into God, is eternal. And as 
the door in this poor temporal life was but a 
little gate that did not always stand open, but 
was often shut by a strong gust of wind, — in 
heaven the poor little gate will become a mighty 
portal, standing open night and day, which no 
storm-wind will ever close, through which the 
soul will freely pass into the heart of God and 
all creatures. 

O, since in this life love has made us so rich, 
though but a little brook, which, when the sun 
shone fiercely, was almost dried up, how rich will 
it not make us, when the little brook has become 
the stream, yea, the ocean ; — when it pours forth 
from the heart of God in full spring-tide, when sin 
shall no more build a barrier in the heart of the 
creature, and there shall be a full and sacred 
giving and receiving between earth and heaven, 
and among all that is in heaven and upon earth ! 



The New Commandment. 169 

O who has so exalted an understanding that he 

can truly say what love is? 

J J Tholuck. 



" Love, in all its depth and height, 

I will sing, and never weary, — 
Love, which maketh life so bright, 

And the drooping heart so cheery, — 
Love, whose fountain is with God, 

And whose streams in Christ descending, 
Flow where'er his footsteps trod, 

With all human blessings blending. 

" Sunbeams dancing on the sea, 

South wind blowing o'er the meadow, 
Bird and blossom on the tree, 

Summer shine and summer shadow, — 
Outward glancings of the Love 

That within, in fadeless beauty, 
Lights and leads my steps above, 

Up the rugged paths of duty. 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

« Love ! my God and King thou art ! 

Ever will I bow before Thee : 
Ever shall this grateful heart 

Own Thy Kingdom and adore Thee 
Neither life nor death can e'er 

From Thy love, my Saviour, sever ; 
Love hath made the sinner dear, 

And that love endureth ever." 



The New Commandment. 17 1 



" I have called you friends." 

John xv. 15. 

To know that there are some souls, hearts 
and minds, here and there, who trust us, and 
whom we trust ; some who know us, and whom 
we know ; some on whom we can always rely, 
and who will always rely on us, — makes a para- 
dise of this great world. The only really solid 
thing in this universe is love. This makes our 
life really life. This makes us immortal while we 
are here. This makes us sure that death is no 
end, but only a beginning, to us and to all we 
love. 

It is only love and insight which show us all 
we have ever done. Cold sagacity misjudges us: 
mere sympathy, feeble good-nature, soothes, but 
does not essentially help us. But love illuminated 
by truth, truth warmed through and through by 
love, — these perform for us the most blessed 
thing that one human being can do for another. 
They show us to ourselves; they show us what 



172 Breathings of the Better Life. 

we really are, what we have been, may be, can 
be, shall be. 

It is not enough to know the outward facts of 
a man's life in order to know him. His actions 
are the smallest part of him. Beneath all his acts 
is the man himself, with his hope, his aim, his 
purpose, his conviction, his longing, his sin and 
remorse, his faith and struggle. This is the 
real man, and you can never know him till you 
have begun to love him ; then he lets you into 
his inward experience, and you know him well. 

Jesus teaches us to know God by showing 
Him to us as our Father and Friend. It is by 
coming to Him day by day, and trusting in Him, 
and leaning on His help, and believing in His 
Providence, and conversing with Him in throbs 
and aspirations of prayer, that we come at last 
to be as certain of God's presence and love as of 
our own existence. 

When we know God as He is, we have found 
a friend who knows us better than we know our- 
selves, helps us when we cannot help ourselves, 



The New Commandment 173 

forgives us when we cannot forgive ourselves, 
and, in the midst of our mighty despair, breathes 
around our heart the perfumed breath of a new 
and divine hope. All our faculties unfold in their 
true method and order : we see that life is sweet, 
that duty is attractive, that truth is inspiration, 
and that love is divine. 

J. F. Clarke. 



I can touch 
This border of Thy garment ; now I know 
I love Thee, Lord, I will not let Thee go ; 
I will not ask, " Are these beloved too much ? " 
Too little, Lord ! because my heart is cold 
In loving Thee ! I make with one of old 
This fervent prayer, Do Thou enlarge my coast 
And o'er it rule Thyself! Where Thou art most 
Beloved, is room for all ! The heart grows wide 
That holdeth Thee ! a Heaven where none doth press 
Upon the other, none of more or less 
Doth ask solicitous, for even there 
Is bread enough, and fulness still to spare, 
And none that come depart unsatisfied. 

Dora Green well. 



EST AND JOY. 



My heart is resting, 0 my God ! 

I will give thanks and sing ; 
My heart is at the secret source 

Of every precious thing ; 
And a new song is in my mouth 

To long-loved music set ; — 
Glory to Thee for all the grace 

I have not tasted yet ! 

Anna L. Waring. 




/ 



REST AND JOY. 



" Peace I leave with you ; my peace I give unto you : not as 
the world giveth, give I unto you." 

John xiv. 27. 

THE world proposes rest by the removal of 
a burden. The Redeemer gives rest by giv- 
ing us the spirit and power to bear the burden. 
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, and ye 
shall find rest unto your souls." Christ does not 
promise a rest of inaction, neither that the thorns 
shall be converted into roses, nor that the trials 
of life shall be removed. It matters not in what 
circumstances men are, whether high or low, 
never shall the Rest of Christ be found in ease 
and self-gratification ; never, throughout eternity, 
will there be rest found in a life of freedom from 
duty. The paradise of the sluggard, where there 
12 



178 Breathings of the Better Life. 

is no exertion, — the heaven of the coward, where 
there is no difficulty to be opposed, is not the 
Rest of Christ. "Take my yoke upon you." 
Nay, if God could give us a heaven like that, it 
would be but misery. The curse on this world 
is labor; but to him who labors earnestly and 
truly, it turns to blessedness. 

It is not the lake locked in ice that suggests 
repose, but the river moving on calmly and rap- 
idly in silent majesty and strength.^ It is not the 
cattle lying in the sun, but the eagle cleaving the 
air with fixed pinions, that gives you the idea 
, of repose combined with strength and motion. 
In creation, the Rest of God is exhibited as a 
sense of Power which nothing wearies. When 
chaos burst into harmony, so to speak, God had 
Rest. 

There are two deep principles in Nature in 
apparent contradiction, — one, the aspiration after 
perfection, the other, the longing after repose. 
In the harmony of these lies the rest of the soul 
of man. There have been times when we have 



Rest and yoy. 



179 



experienced this. Then the winds have been 
hushed, and the throb and the tumult of the pas- 
sions have been blotted out of our bosoms. That 
was a moment when we were in harmony with 
all around, reconciled to ourselves and to our 
God ; when we sympathized with all that was 
pure, all that was beautiful, all that was lovely. 
This was not stagnation, it was fulness of life, — 
life in its most expanded form, such as Nature 
witnessed in her first hour. This is life in that 
form of benevolence which expands into the mind 
of Christ. And when this is working in the soul, 
it is marvellous how it distils into a man's words 
and countenance. We do not wonder that when 
Moses came down from the mount on which he 
had been bowing in adoration before the harmony 
of God, his face was shining with a brightness 
too dazzling to look upon. 

There is Rest in Christ, because He is Love. 
Peace is to be found in taking up in all lowliness 
and meekness the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

F. W. Robertson. 



180 Breathings of the Better Life, 



When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean, 
And billows wild contend with angry roar, 

>T is said, far down beneath the wild commotion, 
That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. 

Far, far beneath, the noise of tempests dieth, 
And silver waves chime ever peacefully, 

And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth, 
Disturbs the Sabbath of that deeper sea. 

So to the heart that knows Thy love, O Purest ! 

There is a temple, sacred evermore, 
And all the babble of life's angry voices 

Dies in hushed stillness at its peaceful door. 

Far, far away, the roar of passion dieth, 

And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully : 

And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth, 
Disturbs the soul that dwells, O Lord, in Thee ! 

H. B. Stowe. 



Rest and Joy. 



181 



" He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; he leadeth me 
beside the still waters." 

Psalm xxiii. 2. 

I travelled along a broad highway, where 
was so much dust and tumult that my soul 
became weary ; I looked often to the right and 
to the left for a diverging road, but I was hur- 
ried forward by the tumultuous crowd, and 
could hardly retain my senses. Then my heav- 
enly Friend sought me in the throng, led me 
forth by secret ways, and brought me into a 
green meadow, and by still waters. Ah ! how 
well was it with me there ! I have experienced 
the blessing which the soul enjoys when it qui- 
etly rests in God. 

" In quietness and in confidence shall be* your 
strength," says the prophet. Yes, there is a 
power in this rest in God, of which the men who 
are rushing along the broad and dusty highway 
can form no conception. The meadows on which 
the soul refreshes itself are ever green ; these 
sacred truths are continually new. 



1 82 Breathings of the Better Life. 



The path of those who have found the only 
good Shepherd leads indeed through a narrow 
and rocky valley, where the crags are united over- 
head, so that the light of the sun can no longer 
shine upon the road. But even in the gloomy 
shade I will not fear. I know that, although I 
cannot behold it, the sun is still shining. He is 
with me. What clouds are scattered by this 
single thought ! 

O gentle Shepherd, guided by Thy hand 

My soul hath found her everlasting rest ; 
Thou leadest me onward towards my Father-land, 
And on the way Thy presence makes me blest ! 

How well the unbroken calm, so deep and still, 

My soul refreshes, long with tumult filled ; 
And now, methinks, my undivided will 
May to my Shepherd's will forever yield. 

Tholuck. 



" Quiet from God I How beautiful to keep 
This treasure the All-Merciful hath given ! 
To feel, when we awake and when we sleep, 

This incense round us, like a breath from heaven : 



Rest and Joy. 



To sojourn in the world, and yet apart ; 

To dwell with God, and still with man to feel • 
To bear about forever in the heart 

The gladness which His Spirit doth reveal. 

Who shall make trouble then ? Not evil minds, 
Which like a shadow o'er creation lower. 

The soul which peace hath thus attuned finds 

How strong within doth reign the Calmer's power. 

< What shall make trouble ? Not slow-wasting pain, 
Nor even the threatening, certain stroke of death : 
These do but wear away, then break, the chain 
Which bound the spirit down to things beneath." 



184 Breathings of the Better Life. 



" For he is our peace." 

Ephesians ii. 14. 

God says the peace of a man who loves Him 
shall flow like a river; and if ours is not such, 
it is because its springs are not in Mount Zion, 
— because its sources are in the marshes and the 
lowlands, and not the crystal fountains of the 
hills. This peace shall not be like a shower, fall- 
ing with temporary abundance, but, like the river 
that flows by the cottage door, always full and 
always singing. The man hears it when he rises 
in the morning ; he hears it in the quiet noon ; 
he hears it when the sun goes down; and if he 
wakes in the night, its sound is in his ears. It 
was there when he was a child ; it was there 
when he grew up to manhood ; it was there 
when he was an old man ; it will murmur by his 
grave upon its banks, and sing and flow for his 
children after him. It is to such a river that 
God likens the divine bounty of peace given to 
His people. 



Rest and yoy. 



185 



The child frightened in his play runs to seek 
his mother. She takes him upon her lap, and 
presses his head to her bosom, and with tender- 
est words of love she looks down upon him, and 
smooths his hair, and kisses his cheek, and wipes 
away his tears. And then, in a low and gentle 
voice, she sings some sweet descant, some lullaby 
of love, and the fear fades out from his face, and 
a smile of satisfaction plays over it, and at length 
his eyes close, and he sleeps in the deep depths 
and delights of peace. God Almighty is the 
mother, and the soul is the tired child ; and He 
folds it in His arms, and dispels its fears, and lulls 
it to repose, saying, " Sleep, my darling, sleep ! 
It is I who watch thee." " He giveth his beloved 
sleep." The mother's arms encircle but one ; but 
God clasps every yearning soul to His bosom, 
and gives to it the peace which passeth under- 
standing, beyond the reach of care or storm. 

H. W. Beecher, 



1 86 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



Life's mystery — deep, restless as the ocean — 
Hath surged and wailed for ages to and fro ; 

Earth's generations watch its ceaseless motion 
As in and out its hollow moanings flow. 

Shivering and yearning by that unknown sea, 

Let my soul calm itself, O Christ, in Thee ! 

The many waves of thought, the mighty tides, 
The ground-swell that rolls up from other lands, 

From far-off worlds, from dim eternal shores, 
Whose echo dashes on life's wave-worn strands, 

This vague, dark tumult of the inner sea 

Grows calm, grows bright, O risen Lord, in Thee 



Thy pierced hand guides the mysterious wheels ; 

Thy thorn-crowned brow now wears the crown of 
power ; 

And when the dark enigma presseth sore, 

Thy patient voice saith, " Watch with me one hour." 

As sinks the moaning river in the sea 

In silver peace, so sinks my soul in Thee ! 

H. B. Stowe. 



Rest and yoy. 



187 



" That my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be 
full." 

John xv. ii. 

The soul is such an instrument that no sooner 
is it set in peace with itself than it becomes an in- 
strument in tune, — a living instrument, discours- 
ing heavenly music in its thoughts, and chanting 
melodies of bliss, even in its dreams. When a 
soul is in this harmony, no fires of calamity, no 
pains of outward torment, can, for one moment, 
break the sovereign spell of its joy. It will turn 
the fires to freshening gales, and the pains to 
sweet instigations of love and blessing. 

We have little conception of the soul's joy, or 
capacities of joy, till we see it established in God. 
The Christian soul is one that has come unto 
God, and rested in the peace of God. It dares 
to call Him Father, without any sense of daring. 
It is in such confidence toward Him, that it even 
partakes His confidence in Himself. It is strong 
with His strength, having all its faculties in a 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



glorious play of energy. Having the testimony 
within, that it pleases God, it approves itself in 
the holy smile of God, that consciously rests 
upon it. Divinely guided, walking in the Spirit, 
it is raised by a kind of inspiration. It sees 
God and knows him by an immediate and ever- 
present knowledge, according even to the prom- 
ise, — "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God." It is consciously ennobled, in 
this manner, by the proximity of God, expanded 
in volume, raised in greatness, thrilled by the 
eternal sublimities of God's deep nature and 
counsel. 

The Christian character is rooted in the Di- 
vine love, and in that view is a sovereign bliss 
welling up from within, — able thus to triumph 
and sing, independent of all circumstance and 
condition. A human soul can love everybody, in 
despite of every hindrance, and by that love can 
bring everybody into its enjoyment. No power 
is strong enough to forbid this act of love, none 
therefore strong enough to conquer the joy of 



Rest and Joy. 



love ; for whatever is loved, even though it be 
an enemy, is and must be enjoyed. 

Love is joy, and all true joy is love : they 
cannot be separated. And Christ is an exhibi- 
tion to us of this fact in his own person, — a rev- 
elation of God's eternal joy, as being a revelation 
of God's eternal love, — coming down thus to utter 
in our ears this glorious call, as a voice sound- 
ing out of God's eternity: "Enter ye into the 
joy of your Lord." 

Joy is a prize unbought, and is freest, purest 
in its flow, when it comes unsought. No getting 
into heaven, as a place, will compass it. You 
must carry it with you, else it is not there. You 
must have it in you, as the music of a well-or- 
dered soul, the fire of a holy purpose, the welling 
up, out of the central depths, of eternal springs 
that hide their waters there. 

H. BUSHNELL. 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



O make me, Lord, thy statutes learn ! 

Keep in Thy ways my feet! 
Then shall my lips divinely burn ; 

Then shall my songs be sweet. 

Each sin I cast away shall make 
My soul more strong to soar ; 
Each deed of holiness shall wake 

A strain Divine the more. 
My voice shall more delight thine ear 

The more I wait on Thee; 
Thy service bring my song more near 

The angelic harmony. 
O wherefore swells so sweet above 

The everlasting hymn? 
Thy will they work, Thy law they love, 
Those tuneful seraphim ! 

When, Lord, shall perfect holiness 

Make my poor voice divine, 

And all harmonious heaven confess 

No sweeter song than mine? 

T. H. Gill. 



Rest and Joy. 



191 



" Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." ' 

John xx. 29. 

There is a state of heart which makes truth 
credible the moment it is uttered. It is credible 
to some men because of what they are. Love 
is credible to a loving heart ; purity is credible 
to a pure mind ; life is credible to a spirit in 
which life ever beats strongly : it is incredible to 
other men. Because of that, such men believe. 
It is of such a state, — a state of love and hope, 
which makes the Divine truth credible and nat- 
ural at once, that Jesus speaks: "Blessed are 
they that have not seen, and yet have believed." 

There are men in whom the resurrection begun 
makes the resurrection credible. In them the 
Spirit of the risen Saviour works already ; and 
they have mounted with Him from the grave. 
They have risen out of the darkness of doubt, 
and are expatiating in the brightness and in the 
sunshine of a Day in which God is ever Light. 
Their step is as free as if the clay of the sepulchre 



192 Breathings of the Better Life. 

had been shaken off; their hearts are lighter than 
those of other men, and there is in them an un- 
earthly triumph which they are unable to express. 
They have risen above the narrowness of life, and 
all that is petty, ungenerous, and mean. They 
have risen above fear, — they have risen above 
self. In the New Testament that is called the 
spiritual resurrection, or being risen with Christ ; 
and the man in whom all that is working has 
something more blessed than external evidence 
to rest upon. He has the witness in himself. 
The resurrection, in all its heavenliness and un- 
earthly elevation, has begun within his soul ; and 
he knows, as clearly as if he had demonstration, 
that it must be developed in an eternal life. 

This is the higher and nobler kind of faith. 
To believe, not because we are learned and can 
prove, but because there is a something in us, 
even God's own Spirit, which makes us feel light 
as light, and truth as truth, — this is the blessed 

fe^k- -p. W. Robertson. 



Rest and Joy. 



193 



Lord, a happy child of Thine, 
Patient through the love of Thee, 

In the light, the life divine 
Lives and walks at liberty. 

Leaning on Thy tender care, 
Thou hast led my soul aright : 

Fervent was my morning prayer ; 
Joyful is my song to-night. 

O my Saviour ! Guardian true ! 

All my life is Thine to keep ; 
At Thy feet my work I do, 

In Thy arms I fall asleep. 

Tender mercies on my way 
Falling softly, like the dew, 

Sent me freshly every day, 
I will bless the Lord for you ! 

Though I have not what I would ; 
Though to greater bliss I go; 
13 



Breathings of the Better Life, 



Every present gift of good. 
To Eternal Love I owe. 

Source of all that comforts me ! 

Well of joy for which I long! 
Let the song I sing to Thee 

Be an everlasting song ! 

Anna L. Waring. 



FULNESS OF LIFE. 



Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow 

For him who lives above all years, 
Who all-immortal makes the Now, 
And is not taken in Time's arrears : 
His life 's a hymn 
The seraphim 
Might hark to hear or help to sing ; 
And to his soul 
The boundless whole 
Its bounty all doth daily bring. 

D. A. Wasson. 



FULNESS OF LIFE. 



" That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." 

Ephesians iii. 19. 

HRHE Apostle says, "Now unto Him that is 
able to do exceeding abundantly above all 
that we can ask or think." What a vision he 
must have had ! How grandly in that moment 
did the divine thought rise before his enrapt 
mind, when he so linked words together, — joining 
golden word to golden word, as if he fain would 
encompass it with a chain, seeking by combina- 
tions to express what no one word would embody. 
" Above all that we can ask or think ! " How 
much can a man ask or think ? When the deep- 
est convictions of sin are upon him, in his hour 
of dark despondency, in some perilous pass of 
life, when fears come upon his soul as storms on 



198 Breathings of the Better Life. 

the Lake of Galilee, consider how much a man 
then asks ! Or when love dwells in his soul, and 
makes life as full as mountains make the streams 
in spring, and when hope is the sun by day and 
the moon by night, — in those gloriously elate 
hours when he seems no longer fixed to space 
and time, but, mounting as if the body were for- 
gotten by the soul, wings his way through the 
realms of aspiration and conception, how much 
a man then thinks ! What epic can equal those 
unwritten words which pour into the ear of God 
out of the heart's fulness ! Still more, those un- 
spoken words which never find the lip, but go 
up to heaven in unutterable longings and aspira- 
tions. 

If we dwelt more upon God's fulness, and His 
desire to make us partakers of it, our Christian 
character would be richer. There is nothing in 
His nature which is not measureless. The view 
of His plenitude will give us hope of rectitude 
in life, and of glorification in heaven, not because 
of our feeble longing, but because of God's infi- 
nite desire for us. 



Fulness of Life, 



The New Testament opens with " Peace on 
earth, and good will to men " ; and these were the 
last words that rung through the air before the 
vision faded : " And the Spirit and the bride say, 
Come ; and let him that heareth say, Come ; and 
let him that is athirst, come ; and whosoever will, 
let him come, and drink of the water of life 
freely " ; and all between these two magnificent 
notes rolls the anthem of God's mercy, — " Who- 
soever will!" 

H. W. Beecher. 



"Thou Grace Divine, encircling all, 
A soundless, shoreless sea, 
Wherein at last our souls shall fall, 
O Love of God most free ! 

"When over dizzy steeps we go 
One soft hand blinds our eyes, 
The other leads us safe and slow, 
O Love of God most wise ! 



200 Breathings of the Better Life. 

"And though we turn us from thy face, 
And wander wide and long. 
Thou hold'st us still in Thine embrace, 
O Love of God most strong ! 

"But not alone Thy care we claim 
Our wayward steps to win; 
We know Thee by a dearer name, 
O Love of God within ! 



" And, filled and quickened by Thy breath, 
Our souls are strong and free 
To rise o'er fear, and sin, and death, 
O Love of God, to Thee ! " 



O Love Divine ! whose constant beam 
Shines on the eyes that will not see, 
And waits to bless us, while we dream 
Thou leavest us because we turn from Thee 



Fulness of Life. 



201 



Truth, which the sage and prophet saw, 

Long sought without, but found within; 
The Law of Love beyond all law ; 
The Life o'erflooding mortal death and sin ! 

Shine, light of God ! make broad thy scope 

To all that sin and surfer; more 
And better than we dare to hope 
With Heaven's compassion make our longings poor 

J. G. Whittier. 



202 Breathings of the Better Life. 



" Ye are complete in him." 

Colossians ii. IO. 

As the Christian advances upon his way, a 
sweet and solemn sense of the unity of life grows 
upon his spirit. " We are complete in Him " : 
much of our life, if viewed in itself only, would 
appear purposeless and broken, yet Christ has 
said, " Gather up these fragments that remain, so 
that nothing be lost." We learn to look at life 
as a whole thing ; not to be discouraged by this 
or that adverse circumstance, remembering how 
much there is and will be in that life which is 
"like frost and snow, kindly to the root, though 
hurtful to the flower " ; fatal to the bloom and 
fragrance, the lovely and enjoyable part of our 
nature, but friendly to its true, imperishable life. 

Looking at ourselves, we may see that under 
a slight, sometimes a very slight modification of 
inward bent, or outward circumstance, we should 
have been far more happy, more beloved, appar- 
ently more useful than now ; yet we may also 



Fulness of Life. 



203 



see as plainly, as we confess it humbly, that we 
have attained through all these losses, to that to 
which every gain is even present, appreciable 
loss. 

Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the believer 
will find the current of his existence sweeping 
into a broader channel ; will find doors opening 
upon him, doors of happiness, doors of useful- 
ness, which will be to him a Gate of Heaven ; 
windows opening, letting in the breath of sum- 
mer upon his soul, filling it with sunshine and 
sweet air. 

Light is good, and it is a pleasant thing to 
behold the sun. Yet far dearer than outward 
peace, far sweeter than inward consolation, is 
that, the ever-during stay, the solace of the 
Christian's heart, the imperishable Root of which 
all else that gladdens it is but the bloom and 
odor. It is to the Cross that the heart must 
turn for that which will reconcile it to all con- 
flicts, all privations ; which will even enable it, 

foreseeing them, to exclaim, " Yet more ! " 

Patience of Hope. 



Breathings of the Better Life, 

My God, I thank Thee who hast made 

The Earth so bright, 
So full of splendor and of joy, 

Beauty and light ; 
So many glorious things are here, 

Noble and right ! 

I thank Thee more that all our joy 

Is touched with pain ; 
That shadows fall on brightest hours; 

That thorns remain ; 
So that Earth's bliss may be our guide, 

And not our chain. 

I thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast kept 

The best in store ; 
We have enough, yet not too much 

To hope for more : 
A yearning for a deeper peace, 

Not known before. 



Fulness of Life, 



I thank Thee, Lord, that here our souls, 

Though amply blest, 
Can never find, although they seek, 

A perfect rest ; 
Nor ever shall, until they lean 

On Jesus' breast ! 

Adelaide A. Procter, 



206 Breathings of the Better Life. 



"All things are yours ; — whether the world, or life, or death, 
or things present, or things to come ; all are yours ; and ye are 
Christ's : and Christ is God's." 

i Corinthians 111. 21-23. 

Let the heart of man be comforted ; it cannot 
outgrow its Christ; yes, let the heart be com- 
forted in him out of its poverty and its riches 
alike. When we remember that Christ, in tak- 
ing unto himself Man's nature, took upon him all 
that it would become, in how glorious and serene 
a light do the acquisitions of science stand ! 
This thought gives, as it were, music and meas- 
ure to the onward march of humanity ; changes 
it from an outbreak of tumultuous forces to 
steady and disciplined progress. And if, turning 
from the world of action, we flash the light of this 
truth within the dim and many-chambered region 
that lies beneath it all, here also we shall discover 
that in Christ there is a provision, though we may 
not at once find it, for the growth and expansion 
which has made Humanity without him like a 
fruit too heavy for the stalk it hangs on, dragged 



Fulness of Life. 



207 



and trailed to dust by its very weight and splen- 
dor. Even through the wealth and apparent 
waste of tendrils and suckers it is now putting 
forth it may cleave closer, drink deeper unto 
Him. For all that awakens a sense of need with- 
in us draws us by so much nearer Christ. 

And let us not be discouraged because the 
life in Christ has grown less simple than it once 
was. When the pressure upon faith comes chiefly 
from without, this very pressure forces up the life 
in a direct, unswerving line, like that of the palm- 
tree, lifting up its golden abundant crown to 
heaven ; the same life would now resemble that 
of a banyan, touching earth at many points, but 
at every one drawing forth fresh life and vigor ; 
less commanding in austere majesty, but more 
resembling the tree of prophetic vision, "a har- 
bor for fowl of every wing." We must open our 
minds to this great fact, that all existence is or- 
ganic : we cannot be, so to speak, one thing men- 
tally and socially, and another thing Christianly, 
as if the life in Christ and the life in Adam flowed 



208 Breathings of the Better Life. 

on together yet distinct, like two unmingling cur- 
rents. Men cannot see Christ at all except by 
light from above ; on the hill, as in the valley, we 
are in darkness until the dawn breaks ; but if 
sunrise finds us on the mountain-peak, is it not 
evident that the prospect its light discloses must 
be infinitely wider and more glorious than if it 
had overtaken us many degrees lower down ? 

Patience of Hope. 



Every sun of splendid ray, 

Every moon that shines serene, 
Every morn that welcomes day, 

Every evening's twilight scene, 
Every hour which wisdom brings, 

Every incense at thy shrine, — 
These, and all life's holiest things, 

And its fairest, all are Thine ! 



And for all, my hymns shall rise 
Daily to Thy gracious throne : 



Fulness of Life. 



209 



Thither let my asking eyes 

Turn unwearied, righteous One ! 
Through life's strange vicissitude 

There reposing all my care; 
Trusting still, through ill and good, 

Fixed, and cheered, and counselled there. 

Bowring. 



*4 



210 Breathings of the Better Life. 

" There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are 
in Christ Jesus." 

Romans viiu i. 

Spiritual life consists in walking with God. 
The nature of God becomes spread over every- 
thing natural and moral, outward and inward, as 
light is spread over the earth. We are reminded 
of Him always, and are never at a distance from 
Him ; we live in Him, we move in Him, and in 
Him we have our being. He is incorporated 
with all we admire and love and wish for ; He 
is the soul of our ambition, and the spirit of our 
joy. We hate what He hates, and what He pities 
we endeavor to help. The charities of His nature 
we copy, His works we imitate, His thoughts we 
meditate, His ways we strive to pursue. We are 
in God new creatures, we are partakers of the 
divine nature, we are members of Christ, we suf- 
fer with Him, we are crucified with Him, we are 
risen with Him to newness of life. 

The eye continues to regale itself with the vis- 



Fulness of Life. 



211 



ion of natural scenery, and to praise the Lord for 
His goodness to the children of men : and the ear 
tastes the voice of melody made in her Maker's 
praise : and love, and elegance, and taste, and 
stately mansions, and adorned fields, and flowery 
gardens, and feast and mirth, are enjoyed with a 
new relish by the spiritual man, because he is 
spiritual. And now he layeth on every faculty 
of his mind in the full scent for truth, for he 
would write his Maker's glory with the sunbeams 
of science, and draw forth His praise from the 
regions of knowledge. And now he gratifies his 
moral nature with a license never before enjoyed : 
he finds its food in every relation and occupation 
of life, and becomes a light to the blind, a help 
to the needy, a defence to the orphan and father- 
less and unbefriended, a blessing unto all. 

This spiritual life is the life of God within the 
soul; it is a return of all the faculties to His 
neighborhood and communion, from that distance 
to which they were banished at the fall. The 
soul hath been made instinct with a constant 



212 Breathings of the Better Life. 

divinity of thought, and discharges all its func- 
tions as in the presence of God. The curse is 
taken off. We are restored to our heritage of 
life, and there remaineth for us no second con- 
demnation. 

E. Irving. 



Yes, in me, in me he dwelleth; 

I in Him, and He in me ! 
And my empty soul he filleth, 

Here, and through eternity. 

Thus I wait for His returning, 
Singing all the way to heaven : 

Such the joyful song of morning, 
Such the tranquil hymn of even. 

H. Bonar. 



Fulness of Life. 



213 



" They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." 

John xvii. 16. 

Holiness is not what we may do or become, 
in mere self-activity or self-culture, but it is the 
sense of a separated quality, in one who lives on 
a footing of intimacy and oneness with God. It 
supposes nothing unsocial, withdraws no one from 
those living sympathies that gladden human life. 
On the contrary, it quickens all most gentle and 
loving affinities, and brings the subject just as 
much closer in feeling to his fellow-man as he 
is closer to God, and less centralized in himself. 
But it changes the look or expression, raising, in 
that manner, the apparent grade of the subject, 
and separating him from whatever is of the world, 
or under the spirit of the world. He is not 
simply a man as before, but he is more, a man 
exalted, hallowed, glorified. The divine tempers 
are in him, the power of the world is fallen off, his 
words have a different accent, his acts an air of 
repose, dignity, sanctity, and the result is that 



214 Breathings of the Better Life, 

mankind feel him as one somehow become supe- 
rior. It stirs their conscience to speak with him, 
it puts them under impressions that are con- 
sciously not of man alone. This is holiness, — 
the greatest power ever exerted by man, being 
not the power of man, but only of God Himself 
manifested in him. 

Christ was no ascetic, his separation was no 
contrived and prescribed separation, but only the 
more real and radical that it was the very instinct, 
or freest impulse of his character. This now is 
what we want, — such a fulness of divine partici- 
pation, that we shall not require to be always 
shutting off the world by prescribed denials, but 
shall draw off from it naturally, because we are 
not of it. A true Christian, one who is deep 
enough in the godly life to have his affinities 
with God, will infallibly become a separated be- 
ing. The instinct of holiness will draw him apart 
into a singular, superior, hidden life with God. 
And this is the true Christian power, besides 
which there is no other. 

H. BUSHNELL. 



Fulness of Life. 



How every tempting form of sin, 

Shamed in Thy presence, disappears ; 

And all the glowing, raptured soul 
The likeness it contemplates wears ! 

O, ever-conscious to my heart, 
Witness to its supreme desire, 

Behold, it presseth on to Thee, 

For it hath caught the heavenly fire ! 

This one petition would it urge, — 
To bear Thee ever in its sight; 

In life, in death, in worlds unknown, 
Its only portion and delight ! 

Doddridge. 



.... Soul, breathe the awful life within, 
Feel all the glory there ! 

The silence thronged gloriously, 

With business how divine ! 
God's glory passing into thee, — 

All heaven becoming thine : 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



The rapture, mighty, measureless, 

In each eternal thing; — 
The mingling with Almightiness, 

The dwelling by Life's Spring! 

Thus sweetly live, thus greatly watch! 

Soul, be but inly bright, — 
All outer things must smile, must catch 

The strong, transcendent light. 

Near thee no darkness dares abide, 
Thou makest all things shine; 

Soul, whom the Lord has glorified, 
Is not all glory thine? 

T. H. Gill. 



Fulness of Life. 



217 



" No man cometh unto me except the Father which hath sent 
me draw him." 

JOHN VI. 44. 

Now mark how the Father draweth men unto 
Christ. When somewhat of this Perfect Good is 
discovered and revealed within the soul of man, 
as it were in a glance or flash, the soul conceiveth 
a longing to approach unto the Perfect Goodness, 
and unite herself unto the Father. And the 
stronger the yearning groweth, the more is re- 
vealed unto her ; and the more is revealed unto 
her, the more she is drawn toward the Father, 
and her desire quickened. Thus is the soul 
drawn and quickened into a union with the Eter- 
nal Goodness. And this is the drawing of the 
Father, and thus the soul is taught of Him who 
draweth her unto Himself, that she cannot enter 
into a union with Him except she come unto 
Him by the life of Christ 

It is a good way and access unto this life, to 
feel always that what is best is dearest, and al- 
ways to prefer the best, and to cleave to it, and 



218 Breathings of the Better Life. 

unite one's self to it. First : in the creatures. 
But what is best in the creatures ? Be assured : 
that in which the Eternal Perfect Goodness and 
what is thereof most brightly shineth and work- 
eth, and is best known and loved. 

When, therefore, among the creatures the man 
cleaveth to that which is the best that he can 
perceive, and keepeth steadfastly to that, in sin- 
gleness of heart, he cometh afterward to that 
which is better and better, until at last he findeth 
and tasteth that the Eternal Good is a Perfect 
Good, without measure and number above all 
created good. Now if what is best is to be 
dearest to us, and we are to follow after it, the 
One Eternal Good must be loved above all 
and alone, and we must cleave to Him alone, 
and unite ourselves with Him as closely as we 
may. 

Now on this wise we should attain unto a true 
inward life. And what then further would hap- 
pen to the soul, or would be revealed unto her, 
and what her life would be henceforward, none 



Fulness of Life. 



219 



can declare or guess. For it is that which hath 
never been uttered by man's lips, nor hath it en- 
tered into the heart of man to conceive. 

Theologia Germanica. 



All my spirit thirsts to see, 

Lord, Thy face unveiled and bright, 

And to stand from sin set free, 
Spotless Lamb, amid Thy light: 

But I leave it, — Thou dost well, 
And my heaven is here and now, 
Daystar of my soul, if Thou 

Wilt but deign in me to dwell • 
For without Thee could there be 
Joy in heaven itself for me ? 

Graft me into Thee forever, 
Vine of Life, that I may grow 

Stronger heavenward, drooping never, 
For the sharpest storms that blow; 

Bearing fruits of faith and truth ; 



220 Breathings of the Better Life. 

Then transplant me out of time 
Into that eternal clime 
Where I shall renew my youth, 

When earth's withered leaves shall bloom 
Fresh in beauty from the tomb. 

Life, to whom as to my Head 
I unite me, through my soul, 

Now thy quickening life-stream shed, 
And thy love's warm current roll, 

Freshening all with strength and grace: 
Be Thou mine, — I am thine own, 
Here and ever, Thine alone ; 

All my hope in Thee I place ; 

Heaven and earth are naught to me, 
Safe, O Life of life, with Thee ! 

W. C. Dessler. 



Fulness of Life. 



221 



" And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be 
sanctified through the truth." 

John xvii. 19. 

In Christ there is not given to us a faultless 
essay on the loveliness of self-consecration, to 
convince our reason how beautiful it is ; but there 
is given to us a self-consecrated One ; a living 
Truth, a living Person ; a Life that was beautiful, 
a Death that we feel in our inmost hearts to have 
been Divine ; and all this in order that the Spirit 
of that consecrated Life and consecrated Death, 
through love and wonder, and deep enthusiasm, 
may pass into us and sanctify us also, to the truth, 
in life and death. He sacrificed Himself that we 
might offer ourselves a living sacrifice to God. 

The evil from which Christ's sanctification sep- 
arates the soul is that w r orst of evils, — properly 
speaking, the only evil, — sin. This is our foe, — 
our only foe, that we have a right to hate with 
perfect hatred, meet it where we will, in whatever 
form, in church or state, in false social maxims, 
or in our own hearts. It was to sanctify or sep- 



222 Breathings of the Better Life. 

arate us from this that Christ sanctified or con- 
secrated Himself. By the blood of His anguish, 
by the strength of His unconquerable resolve, 
we are sworn against it ; bound to be, or else 
sinning greatly, in a world of evil, consecrated 
spirits. 

He is sanctified by the self-devotion of his 
Master from the world, who has a life in himself 
independent of the maxims and customs which 
sweep along with them other men. His true 
life is hid with Christ in God. His citizenship 
is in heaven. He may be tempted ; he may err ; 
he may fall ; but still, in his darkest aberrations, 
there will be a something that keeps before him 
the dreams and aspirations of his best days ; a 
thought of the Cross of Christ, and the self-con- 
secration that it typifies ; a conviction that that is 
the Highest, and that alone the true Life. And 
that Life within him is Christ's pledge that he 
shall yet be what he longs to be, — a something 
severing him, separating him, consecrating him. 
For him, and for such as he, the consecration- 



Fulness of Life. 223 

prayer of Christ was made. "They are not of 
the world, even as I am not of the world : sanc- 
tify them through thy Truth. Thy word is 
Truth.'' 

F. W. Robertson. 



"Purer yet and purer 
I would be in mind; 
Dearer yet and dearer 
Every duty find ; 

"Hoping still, and trusting 
God without a fear; 
Patiently believing 

He will make all clear. 

" Calmer yet and calmer, 
Trial bear, and pain, 
Surer yet, and surer, 
Peace at last to gain. 

" Suffering still, and doing ; 
To His will resigned, 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



And to Him subduing 
Heart and will and mind. 

"Higher yet and higher 

Out of clouds and night, 
Nearer yet and nearer 
Rising to the light; — 

" Light serene and holy, 
Where my soul may rest, 
Purified and lowly, 
Sanctified and blest." 



Fulness of Life. 225 

" But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Al- 
mighty giveth them understanding." 

Job xxxii. 8. 

Observe what takes place in the human soul, 
when it is practically filled and operated by the 
Spirit of God. It has now that higher Spirit 
witnessing with itself. " Witnessing with," — 
there is a kind of double sense in which the 
subject takes note, both of God and himself to- 
gether, and is, at one and the same moment, 
conscious of both. He is no longer a simple 
feather of humanity, driven about by the fickle 
winds of this world's changes, but, in the new 
sense he has of a composite life, in which God 
Himself is a presiding force, he is raised into a 
glorious equilibrium above himself, and is set in 
rest upon the rock of God's eternity. All his 
powers and talents are quickened to a glow. His 
perceptions are cleared, his imagination exalted, 
and his whole horizon within is gloriously lumi- 
nous. 

15 



226 Breathings of the Better Life. 

But we do not really conceive the height of 
this subject, till we bring into view the place it 
holds in the economy of the heavenly state. All 
good angels and glorified men are distinguished 
by the fact that they are now filled with a com- 
plete inspiration from the fulness of God. It is 
their spiritual perfection that they are perfectly 
inspired, so that their whole action is in the 
divine impulse. All sin, all defect and spiritual 
distemper are drunk up or lost in the divine per- 
fection. Their complete inspiration is their dig- 
nity, their strength, the spring of their swiftness 
and joy ; and the Alleluia of their adoring eter- 
nity, — the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, — cel- 
ebrates a reign not about them in things, nor in 
some third heaven above, but in them, in the 
more magnificent heaven of their own exalted 
powers and thoughts, and the glorified passions 
of their Spirit. Inspiration is their heaven ; the 
Lord God giveth them light. All that we mean 
by the heavenly joy and perfection is nothing but 
the restoration and the everlasting bloom of that 



Fulness of Life. 227 

high capacity for God, in which our normal state 
began, and of which that first state was only 
the germ, or prophecy. Man finds his paradise, 
when he is imparadised in God. 

H. BUSHNELL. 



Lie open, Soul ! the Beautiful, 
That all things doth embrace, 

Shall sweetly every passion lull, 
And clothe thee in her grace. 

Lie open, Soul! the great and wise 

About thy portal throng; 
The wealth of souls before thee lies, 

Their gifts to thee belong. 

Lie open, Soul ! lo, Jesus waits 

To enter thine abode, 
Messiah lingers at thy gates ; 

Let in the Son of God ! 

Lie open, Soul ! in watchfulness 
Each brighter glory win; 



228 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



The infinite thy peace shall bless, 
And God shall enter in! 

O awful joy ! O life divine ! 

O bliss too great, too full ! 
Earth, man, heaven, angels, all are thine, 

And thou art God's, my soul! 

Disciples' Hymn-Book. 



Fulness of Life. 



229 



"The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more 
and more unto the perfect day." 

Proverbs iv. 18. 

I know not what should more cheer and glad- 
den a Christian than to see his spiritual life 
losing everything of an exotic character ; to have 
it set in the open air, welcoming the wind from 
every quarter ; acquiescing in all things because 
depending only upon one. A free and sustained 
spirit becomes habitual to him, who, in the 
breaking of his daily bread, has found that Real 
Presence which sanctifies and glorifies our life's 
poor elements. When the heart has found its 
true gravitation, it leaves that Rest slowly and 
returns to it quickly ; disturbing influences will 
be felt from time to time, but their power is 
gone, — " that which is the strongest must win." 

A firm, assured patience grows upon the Chris- 
tian, enabling him to hold upon his way, unde- 
terred, unchilled, by whatever he may meet upon 
it ; enabling him also, I know not to what inner 
music, to build up his spirit to a strength of 



230 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



calm, reliant conviction, even with the stones he 
finds there, as a brook lifts up a more clear and 
rapid voice for flowing over pebbles. The strain 
upon the inner life has passed over from self to 
Christ. The heart has grown wise, instructed, 
tolerant, tender with weakness, patient of imper- 
fection. 

How quiet such a life is ! how fruitful ! fruitful 
because it is so quiet ; it works not, but lives and 
grows. The uneasy effort has passed out of it ; 
unresting because it rests always, it has done with 
task-work and anxiety ; it .serves, yet is not cum- 
bered with much serving ; it has ceased from that 
sad complaint, — " Thou hast left me to serve 
alone." 

Such a life will seem less spiritual only because 
it has grown more natural : the soul moves in an 
atmosphere which of itself brings it into contact 
with all great and enduring things, and it has 
only to draw in its breath to be filled and satis- 
fied. I know not how to describe the grandeur 
and simplicity of the state that is no longer self- 



Fulness of Life. 



231 



bounded, self-referring; how great a thing to 
such a freed and rejoicing spirit the life in Christ 
Jesus seems ; a temple truly " not of this build- 
ing," too great to be mapped out and measured ; 
too great to be perfect here : a thought for which 
our mortal life, — a language as yet too broken 
and confused to 

" Catch up the whole of love and utter it," — 

can find no corresponding word. 

Patience of Hope. 



Behold, the paths of life are ours, — we see 
Our blest inheritance where'er we tread ; 

Sorrow and danger our security, 

And disappointment lifting up our head. 

Kings unto God, we may not doubt our power j 

We may not languish when he says, " Be strong," — 

We must move on through every adverse hour 
And take possession as we pass along. 

O ye that faint and die, arise and live ! 

Sing, ye that all things have a charge to bless ! 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



If he is faithful who hath sworn to give, 
Then be ye also faithful, and possess ! 

Count all the pains that speed thee to thy rest 
Among the riches of thy purchased right ; 

Yea, bind them in His name upon thy breast 
As jewels for the Bride, the Lamb's delight. 

And love shall teach us while on Him we lean, 
That, in the certainty of coming bliss, 

We may be yearning for a world unseen, 
Yet wear our beautiful array in this. 

Anna L. Waring. 



THE ILLUMINED GATEWAY. 



The grave itself is but a covered bridge, 

Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness. 

H. W. Longfellow. 

O Thou true Life of all that live, 

Who dost, unmoved, all motion sway, 
Who dost the morn and evening give, 

And through its changes guide the day ; 
Thy light upon our evening pour, — 

So may our souls no sunset see, 
But death to us an open door 

To an eternal morning be ! 

Lyra Catholica. 



THE ILLUMINED GATEWAY. 



" For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing ? Are not 
even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming ? 

i Thessalonians ii. 19. 

ALTHOUGH we are accustomed to think of 
heaven as distant, of this we have no proof. 
Heaven is the union, the society, of spiritual, 
higher beings. May not these fill the universe ? 
Milton has said, 

" Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep." 

A new sense, a new eye, might show the spiritual 
world compassing us on every side. Whilst we 
know not to what place our friends go, we know 
what is infinitely more interesting, to what beings 
they go. , We know not where heaven is, but we 
know whom it contains ; and this knowledge 
opens to us an infinite field for contemplation 
and delight. 

W. E. Channing. 



236 Breathings of the Better Life. 

As, in some summers morning which wakes 
with a ring of birds, when it is clear, leagues up 
into the blue, and everything is as distinctly cut 
as if it stood in heaven and not on earth, when 
the distant mountains lie bold upon the horizon, 
and the air is full of the fragrance of flowers 
which the night cradled, — the traveller goes 
forth with buoyant and elastic step upon his jour- 
ney, and halts not till in the twilight shadows he 
reaches his goal ; so may we, who are but pil- 
grims, go forth beneath the smile of God, upon 
our homeward journey ! May heaven lie upon 
the horizon, luring us on, and when at last we 
sink to sleep, and dream that we behold again 
those whom we have lost, may we wake to find 
that it was not a dream, but that we are in 
heaven ; and may the children, for whom we 
have yearned, and the companions who antici- 
pated us, and gained heaven first, come to greet 
us ! Then, sweeter than all, may we behold the 
face of the Lord Jesus, our Master, our Life, and 



The Illumined Gateway. 



237 



cast ourselves before Him, that He may raise us 
up with great grace, to stand upon our feet for- 
evermore ! 

H. W. Beecher. 



Love craves the presence and the sight 

Of all its well-beloved ; 
And therefore weep we in the homes 

Whence they are far removed. 
Love craves the presence and the sight 

Of each beloved one ; 
And therefore Jesus spake the word 

Which called them to the throne. 

Thus heaven is gathering, one by one, 

In its capacious breast 
All that is pure and permanent, 

And beautiful and blest. 
The family is scattered yet, 

Though of one home and heart : 
Part militant in earthly gloom, 

In heavenly glory part. 



Breathings of the Better Life, 



But who can speak the rapture, when 

The number is complete, 
And all the children sundered now, 

Around one Father meet? 
One fold, one Shepherd, one employ, 

One everlasting Home. — 
"Lo! I come quickly " : even so ; 

Amen ! Lord Jesus, come ! 

" Elim." 



The Illumined Gateway. 



239 



" Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may 
be accepted of him." 

2 Corinthians v. 9. 

What, then, is that which we call to die? To 
go out like a light, and in a sweet trance to for- 
get ourselves and all the passing phenomena of 
the day, as we forget the phantoms of a fleeting 
dream ; to form, as in a dream, new connections 
with God's world ; to enter into a more exalted 
sphere, and to make a new step up man's gradu- 
ated ascent of creation. 

Life has no value except in so far as we use 
it for perfecting our souls, for enriching our minds 
with noble qualities, and for spreading happiness 
around us. When we can no longer do this, 
when all hope of again being able to exert our- 
selves in this way ceases, then this life has lost 
its highest value, and a new existence becomes 
desirable. 

What are the terrors of death to a noble mind ? 
A play of the imagination, at which not the soul, 
but only what is earthly in us trembles. Has 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



not Jesus Christ conquered for us the terrors of 
death ? Did He not open for us joyful admission 
to the Father, when He taught us to be perfect 
as our Father in Heaven is perfect? 

Though the body may shudder when about to 
be reduced to ashes again, the spirit of the right- 
eous is at the same time seized with holy trans- 
ports ; for it sees throughout the universe Life 
only, nowhere death ; it sees the mutual relations 
of all things, sees no link wanting in the great 
chain of being which the almighty hand of God 
has woven. 

These friends, these loved ones to whom I 
cling so tenderly, when I part from them will it 
be forever? Nay, it is but separation for the 
length of a summer night. Their souls will re- 
main true to mine. The kind though mysterious 
hand of Providence, which made us find each 
other in the gloom of this life, will reunite us 
again in the bright daylight of eternal being. 
The All-Holy One, in whose likeness we grow, 
through love and virtue, will not allow love and 



The Illumined Gateway. 241 

virtue to fade with the dust, from which they do 
not spring. 

If it be then my Father's will that I depart 
hence earlier than ye, beloved ones, whom He 
bestowed upon me to gladden my life, my last 
look will dwell upon you with tender blessings, 
while eternity is beckoning me away. " Weep 
not," I will whisper to you in my last hour ; 
" that is not death where innocence, virtue, and 
holiness live. Sin only is the death of the soul. 
Flee sin, hold fast to God, act divinely in so far as 
your powers will allow, and we shall belong to 
each other and remain united there as here/' 

What attractions has this earth that should 
make parting from it so difficult ? The desire of 
the righteous is to be forever growing in right- 
eousness. This holy craving can only be satisfied 
after we awake in the higher existence. 

And when I shall awaken into that eternal, 
more blissful existence; — O Jesus! Revealer of 
eternity ! what holy transports fill my being at 
the thought of what I shall then enjoy! The 
16 



242 Breathings of the Better Life. 

grave is my cradle, death is my awaking; the 
sunset of this life is the sunrise of existence in 
the regions of eternity ! 

ZSCHOKKE. 



Every hour that passes o'er us 
Speaks of comfort yet before us, 

Of our journey ? s rapid rate ; 
And like passing vesper bells 
The clock of time its chiming tells 

At eternity's broad gate. 

On we haste, to home invited, 
There with friends to be united 

On a surer bond than here, 
Meeting soon, and met forever: 
Glorious hope! forsake us never! i 

For thy glimmering light is dear. 

Ah, the way is shining clearer, 
As we journey, ever nearer 

To the everlasting home. 
Friends, who there await our landing, 
Comrades round the throne now standing, 

We salute you, and we come ! 

J. Langr 



The Illumined Gateway, 243 



"O, heaven is nearer than mortals think 
When they look with a trembling dread 
At the misty future that stretches on 
From the silent home of the dead. 

" 'T is no lone isle in a boundless main, — 
No brilliant, but distant shore 
Where the lovely ones who are called away 
Must go to return no more. 

"I know when the silver cord is loosed, 
When the veil is rent away, 
Not long and dark shall the passage be 
To the realms of endless day. 

"The eye that shuts in a dying hour 
Will open next in bliss ; 
The welcome will sound in the heavenly world 
Ere the farewell is hushed in this. 

"We pass from the clasp of mourning friends 
To the arms of the loved and lost ; 
And those smiling faces will greet us there, 
Which on earth we have valued most" 



244 Breathings of the Better Life. 

" He is not here, for he is risen." 

Matthew xxviii. 6. 

There lies the garment which the earthly pil- 
grim wore throughout his pilgrimage, in sunshine 
and in storm. O what thoughts pass through the 
mind as we stand by the dead, — thoughts which 
never else occur ! 

Soul, purified in the furnace of affliction, thou 
art now with God. What is thy condition, now 
that the veil is withdrawn from thine eyes, — now 
that faith is turned into sight? 

The fruit has fallen, because it was ripe. Hap- 
py soul, it was appointed thee to ripen on the 
earth ; thou hast experienced its pleasures, its 
troubles, and its labors, and not in vain. All thy 
labors in the world were at the same time the 
building up of thine own soul for a temple of 
God. Here thou didst not belong to us, but to 
Him : therefore we will be grateful that thou 
wert so long lent us, and hold fast the good re- 
ceived through thee. Of thy good things thou 



The Illumined Gateway. 245 

hast given us so much, that thou still remainest 
with us, we can still take counsel with thee, and 
thy mouth still teaches us. Nor wilt thou forget 
us, in the vision of the celestial light : that light 
is the light of love, and thy thoughts of us will 
be thoughts of prayer. 

We have learned from thee that man can lay 
hold of the invisible as though he saw it, and 
knowing this, we cannot mourn as those who 
have no hope. Thou art not that which was 
buried ; that was thy garment, and with the gar- 
ment are laid aside thy troubles and tears, and 
when thou shalt receive it again, renewed by the 
hand of the Almighty, it will bear no more traces 
of tears. 

O, when one is taken from among us who ever 
lived as seeing the invisible, how over his grave 
do our hearts unite more closely to each other, 
more closely to the invisible ! 

As we can no longer rest in thy heart, we will 
so much the more seek repose with thee in the 
heart of our God ! It is our blessedness that, 



246 Breathings of the Better Life. 

when one dies who belongs to the Lord, his love 

draws us after him. " O, to meet again ! " is the 

longing cry of the soul. But we know that where 

thou art, we can only come by the way which 

thou didst walk. We so often think of meeting 

again, as a necessary consequence of death ; and 

yet, beyond the grave are diverse ways. 

Lord Jesus, who hast taken away the sting of 

death, and hast brought life and immortality to 

light, unite in Thy eternal kingdom those whom 

Thou didst on earth make one in Thy love! 

Tholuck. 

A pathway opens from the tomb ; 

The grave 's a grave no more ! 
Stoop down ; look into that sweet room ; 

Pass through the unsealed door ; 
Linger a moment by the bed 
Where lay but yesterday the Church's Head. 

What is there there to make thee fear? 
A folded chamber-vest 



The Illumined Gateway. 247 



Akin to that which thou shalt wear 

When for thy slumber drest ; 
Two gentle angels sitting by; — 
How sweet a room, methinks, wherein to lie ! 

No gloomy vault, no charnel cell, 

No emblem of decay, 
No solemn sound of passing-bell, 

To say, "He's gone away": 
But angel-whispers soft and clear, 
And He, the risen Jesus, standing near. 

"Why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? 

The living with the dead?" 
Take young spring-flowers and deck thy brow, 

For life with joy is wed ; 
The grave is now the grave no more ; 
Why fear to pass that bridal-chamber door ? 

Lyra Angltcana. 



248 Breathings of the Better Life. 

" He hath made everything beautiful in his time." 

ECCLESIASTES Hi. II. 

Out of this world into another my soul shall 
go, through death. Dear world of my birth, that 
I am to remember for ever and ever ! I have had 
pain in it often, and pleasure often. And O, 
what have I learned in it ! God, and Christ, and 
my immortality ! 

To have been of the same generation will be 
like having been of the same family ; and, down 
long streets of stars we shall look upon this 
earth as the little home we all lived in once. 
Every man I part from is a soul to be met again, 
and every face I see is what will be bright with 
the light of heaven some time, and in my sight. 
Duty reaches down ages in its effects, and into 
eternity ; and when a man goes about it reso- 
lutely, it seems to me now as though his foot- 
steps were echoing beyond the stars, though 
only heard faintly in the atmosphere of this 
world, because it is so heavy. 



The I Hummed Gateway. 249 



What, then, is death ? It will be a conceal- 
ment of me from the world, but not a hiding 
of the world from me. Always there will be 
something of me lasting on in the world ; and 
to the end of it the world will be known to 
me in some things, I think. 

It is not to be estranged from this world ut- 
terly. O no ! For it is to be taken into the 
bosom of the Father, and to feel His feelings 
for this world, and to look back upon it from 
under the light of His eyes. Death is this, and 
it is beauty and it is peace. 

EUTHANASY. 

Praised be the mosses soft 

In thy forest pathways oft, 

And the thorns, which make us think 

Of the thornless river-brink, 

Where the ransomed tread. 
Praise'd be thy sunny gleams, 
And the storm that worketh dreams 

Of calm unfinished. 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



Praised be thine active days, 
And thy night-time's solemn need, 
When in God's dear book we read, 

"No night shall be therein." 
Earth, we Christians praise thee thus, 
Even for the change that comes, 
With a grief from thee to us ! 
For thy cradles and thy tombs ; 
For the pleasant corn and wine, 
And summer heat; and also for 
The frost upon the sycamore, 
And hail upon the vine. 

E. B. Browning. 



Wilt thou not ope thy heart to know 
What rainbows teach, and sunsets show,— 
Voice of earth to earth returned, 
Prayers of saints that inly burned, — 
Saying, "What is excellent, 
As God lives, is permanent ; 
Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain; 
Heart's love will meet thee again." 

R. W. Emerson. 



The Illumined Gateway. 251 

" Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be 
with me where I am." 

John xvtu 24. 

u Ye know not the power of God," said Jesus 
to the : sceptical Sadducees. 

Ye ;know not the power of God: ye know 
not what career it has opened to the emanci- 
pated soul : ye know not in what new raiment 
this squI may be veiled when it hastens towards 
Him, towards the Father; ye know not what 
new views of the universe may burst upon it 
at the moment of the great change in its con- 
dition. In like manner as a world inhabited 
exclusively by persons born blind, would have 
no language to express the varied beauties of 
color and form, the brightness of the heavens, 
or the blue tints of distance, so do we lack the 
faculty to comprehend, and the means to de- 
scribe, the phenomena of the future life. Indeed, 
our language and imagery in a great measure 
contribute to obscure that which might be clear 
to us even here on earth, and give us confused 



252 Breathings of the Better Life. 

notions of that which is in itself perfectly sim- 
ple. Thus the expressions "eternity," and "be- 
yond the grave," are misunderstood by many. 
People frequently picture to themselves, in con- 
nection with these terms, something quite sepa- 
rate from our time, and existing entirely by 
itself; something that is to come. But eternity 
does not only belong to the future, it is already 
here. We are all living in eternity, for we live 
in God, and God is eternal. Earth and heaven, 
time and eternity, are one. We are already liv- 
ing in our Fathers house here on earth, but 
we have not reached the higher grades of per- 
fection, and are not yet there where the glory 
of God can appear to us in full effulgence. 
Thither we must be conducted by the angel of 
the better world, whom we call Death. 

We live, but our beloved ones who have died 
also live ; we stand weeping on this globe, float- 
ing in infinite space, but our glorified dear ones 
are, like ourselves, in God's world. The loved 
ones whose loss I lament are still in existence ; 



The Illumined Gateway. 253 



they are living with me at this very time ; they 
are, like myself, dwelling in the great paternal 
mansion of God ; they still belong to me as I 
to them. We are not separated. No time lies 
between us ; for I, like them, dwell in eternity, 
rest in the arms of God. 

God, who, through love, has bound his crea- 
tures to each other and to Himself, would He 
destroy this love, this divine power in the glo- 
rified soul, at the very moment that He called 
it into a more perfect existence ? No ; that 
which is Divine is eternal. God did not create 
spirits, and endow them with a knowledge of 
Himself, to allow them to forget Him after a 
brief space. He did not unite souls by the 
spiritual bonds of love, to separate them again 
forever. Therefore the bond that united us in 
life, O my beloved, cannot have been dissev- 
ered by the death of the body. I still belong 
to you, though you are living in some other 
mansion in our Heavenly Fathers house. And 
you cannot have forgotten me, for God is 



254 Breathings of the Better Life. 

the God of love. The mutual love of souls is 
eternal, like the souls themselves ; eternal, like 
God and His love. For He "is not the God 
of the dead, but of the living." 

ZSCHOKKE. 



" The loved and lost ! " why do we call them lost, 

Because we miss them from our onward road? 
God's unseen angel o'er our pathway crossed, 
Looked on us all, and loving them the most, 
Straightway relieved them from life's weary load. 

They are not lost; they are within the dopr 

That shuts out loss, and every hurtful thing, 
With angels bright, and loved ones gone before, 
In their Redeemer's presence evermore, 

And God himself, their Lord and Judge and King. 

And call we this a loss? Death makes no breach 

In love and sympathy, in hope and trust; 
No outward sign or sound our ears can reach, 
But there 's an inward, spiritual speech, 

That greets us still, though mortal tongues be dust. 



The Illumined Gateway. 



255 



It bids us do the work that they laid down, 

Take up the song where they broke off the strain. 
So journeying till we reach the heavenly town, 
Where are laid up our treasures and our crown, 
And our lost loved ones will be found again. 

Lyra Ccelestis, 



THE GLORY BEYOND. 



"That coming light no mortal cloud 

Can quite enshroud. 
Through all our doubts, above the range 
Of every fear, and every change, 
My faith can see, with longing eye, 
The dawn of heaven on earth's dim sky, 

And from afar 
Shines on my soul the morning star." 



IT 



THE GLORY BEYOND. 



" I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." 



HAT the other life will bring I know 



* * not, only that I shall awake in God's 
likeness, and see him as he is. If a child had 
been born and spent all his life in the Mam- 
moth Cave, how impossible would it be for him 
to comprehend the upper world! His parents 
might tell him of its life, and light, and beauty, 
and its sounds of joy; they might heap up the 
sand into mounds, and try to show him by 
pointing to stalactites how grass, and trees, and 
flowers grow out of the ground, till at length, 
with laborious thinking, the child would fancy 
he had gained a true idea of the unknown land. 
But when he came up, some May morning, with 



Psalm xvii. 15. 




260 Breathings of the Better Life. 

ten thousand birds singing in the trees, and the 
heavens bright, blue, and full of sunlight, and 
the wind blowing softly through the young 
leaves, all a-glitter with dew, and the landscape 
stretching away green and beautiful to the hori- 
zon, with what rapture would he gaze about 
him, and see how poor were all the fancyings 
and the interpretations which were made within 
the cave, of the things which grew and lived 
without ; and how would he wonder that he 
could have regretted to leave the silence and 
the dreary darkness of his old abode ! 

So, when we emerge from this cave of earth 
into that land where spring growths are, and 
where is summer, and not that miserable trav- 
estie which we call summer here, how shall we 
wonder that we could have clung so fondly to 
this dark and barren life ! 

Beat on, then, O heart, and yearn for dying! 
I have drunk at many a fountain, but thirst 
came again ; I have fed at many a bounteous 
table, but hunger returned ; I have seen many 



The Glory Beyond. 261 



bright and lovely things, but, while I gazed, 
their lustre faded. There is nothing here that 
can give me rest ; but when I behold Thee, O 
God, I shall be satisfied ! 

H. W. Beecher. 

Down below, the wild November whistling 
Through the beech's dome of burning red, 

And the autumn sprinkling penitential 
Dust and ashes on the chestnut's head. 

Up above, the tree with leaf unfading 

By the everlasting river's brink, 
And the sea of glass beyond whose margin 

Never yet the sun was known to sink. 

Down below, imaginations quivering, 

Through our human spirits like the wind; 

Thoughts that toss, like leaves about the woodland, 
Hopes, like sea-birds, flashed across the mind. 

Up above, the host no man can number, 
In white robes, a palm in every hand, 



262 Breathings of the Better Life. 

Each some work sublime forever working 
In the spacious tracts of that great land. 

Up above, the thoughts that know not anguish; 

Tender care, sweet love for us below; 
Noble pity, free from anxious terror; 

Larger love, without a touch of woe. 

Down below, a sad, mysterious music, 

Wailing through the woods and on the shore, 

Burdened with a grand, majestic secret 
That keeps sweeping from us evermore. 

Up above, a music that entwineth 
With eternal threads of golden sound 

The great poem of this strange existence, 

All whose wondrous meaning hath been found. 

Lyra Ccelestis. 



The Glory Beyond, 263 



" Behold, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet 

appear what we shall be." 
11 1 John m. 2. 

" Blessed are they who long for home, for 
they shall come home!" Thus was a man of 
God accustomed to say, who well knew the pil- 
grim life with its rough ways, its stormy days, 
and its sleepless nights. But must not even he 
who has been led by the most pleasant path 
through this earthly vale, repeat the same ? So 
long as Christians must pray, "Thy kingdom 
come ! " so long this desire cannot cease. True, 
the kingdom of God comes not only in the 
future, — it is also here, though as yet only in 
its commencement. The Apostle says, "We 
have received the first-fruits of the spirit." If 
the little drops give joy, what will not the ocean 
give! If the first-fruits make us so rich, what 
will the riches of the full harvest be ! 

The road in the land of the pilgrimage is 
often so rough, that on that account we may 
well desire to come home. But were it not so, 



264 Breathings of the Better Life. 

can we, while in the land of the stranger, be 
quite free from sin ? It is well if, in the fear 
of the Lord, we walk on from victory to victory ; 
but do we obtain a perfect victory? 

But if the kingdom of God should enter in 
its full power into my own heart, could I be 
happy so long as I must walk in a world where 
goodness has the right, but evil the power ? 
No : a longing after the land of truth and glory 
is as natural to the Christian, as the desire for 
the mountains is to him who has long been 
compelled to live in a flat country, and yet knows 
what mountain air is. 

"When He shall appear, we shall be like 
Him." In this the human spirit rests ; there is 
nothing greater. Already it appeared so to us, 
when, under the coarse garment, he concealed 
the splendors of heaven, — already it seemed to 
us that here or nowhere was to be seen the 
noblest form of humanity ; and now the garb 
of the servant is laid aside, and He has put on 
the royal crown. And what He, the first-born 



The Glory Beyond. 



265 



brother is, that shall we also be. If, then, He 
will reveal himself to me in His whole glory, 
will He not enter me as the unbroken sunshine, 
and make me wholly light, as He is ? 

" And every man that hath this hope in him 
purifieth himself, even as He is pure." 

Tholuck. 



" Far out of sight, while sorrows still enfold us, 
Lies the fair Country where our hearts abide, 
And of its bliss is naught more wondrous told us, 
Than these few words, 'I shall be satisfied.' 

" < 1 shall be satisfied ! ' The spirit 's yearning 

For sweet companionship with kindred minds,— 
The silent love that here meets no returning, — 
The inspiration that no language finds,— 

" Shall they be satisfied ? The soul's vague longing, — 
The aching void which nothing earthly fills? 
O, what desires upon my heart are thronging, 
As I look upward to the heavenly hills ! 



266 Breathings of the Better Life. 

" Thither my weak and weary steps are tending; — 
Saviour and Lord ! with Thy frail child abide ! 
Guide me towards Home, where, all my wander- 
ings ending, 
I shall see Thee, and ' shall be satisfied ! ' " 



Courage ! We travel through a darksome cave ; 
But still, as nearer to the light we draw, 
Fresh gales will reach us from the upper air, 
And wholesome dews of heaven our foreheads lave, 
The darkness lighten more, till full of awe 
We stand in the open sunshine — unaware. 

R. C. Trench. 



The Glory Beyond. 267 



" There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God." 

Hebrews iv. 9. 

Now blessed be Paul for that one word, — 
rest. It makes one feel like a child in the even- 
ing of a summer's day, and it makes one's death- 
bed as soft to think of as going to sleep. Rest, 
rest ! It will be a world of rest ; and so it will 
hardly be a world like this earth, with clouds 
driving over it, and with seas in it ebbing and 
flowing, and never still, and with winds rising 
and falling, and blowing now one way and now 
another. 

Many objects in this world are what things 
in heaven will be like. Meadows we shall lie 
down in ; and there will be in our ears the mur- 
mur of the river of the water of life ; and over 
us there will be a tree of life, and through the 
leaves of it some rays of the light of God will 
shine upon us in that blessed shade; and we 
shall eat of the fruit of the tree, because it is 
for the healing of the nations ; and just at first 



268 Breathings of the Better Life. 

we shall not venture to look into the full glory 
beyond, for we shall be only fresh out of the 
darkness of this earth, — 

"And God will be all in all!" 

He will be in the river of life, flowing along- 
side us ; and He will be in the tree that shades 
us, and in the light that shines through it ; and 
He will be in us ourselves. He will be ever- 
lasting growth of spirit in us, and He will be 
peace and joy. Ay, there will then be one soul 
of joy in us and in God. We in him, He will 
be in us. We shall be nerves in His infinite 
blessedness, and forever be thrilled with delight. 
And, perhaps, what is done divinely on one side 
of heaven will gladden us on the other ; for we 
shall be in God, and God will be then, as He is 
now, glad in all things. God in us, and we in 
God, — this one certainty of what heaven will 
be is enough for us. 

EUTHANASY. 



The Glory Beyond. 



269 



" Rest, weary head ! 
Lie down to slumber in the peaceful tomb ; 
Light from above has broken through its gloom ; 
Here, in the place where once thy Saviour lay, 
Where He shall wake thee on a future day,— 
Like a tired child upon its mother's breast, 
Rest, sweetly rest! 

"Rest, spirit free, 
In the green pastures of the heavenly shore, 
Where sin and sorrow can approach no more; 
With all the flock by the Good Shepherd fed, 
Beside the streams of life eternal led, 
Forever with thy God and Saviour, blest, 
Rest, sweetly rest!" 



"It is perpetual summer there. But here 
Sadly we may remember rivers clear, 

And harebells quivering on the meadow-floor. 
For brighter bells and bluer, 
For tenderer hearts and truer, 



270 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



People that happy land, the realm 
Of Nevermore. 

"Upon the frontier of this shadowy land, 
We, pilgrims of eternal sorrow, stand ; — 

What realm lies forward, with its happier store 
Of forests green and deep, 
Of valleys hushed in sleep, 
And lakes most peaceful? Tis the land 
Of Evermore. 

"Very far off its marble cities seem, 
Very far off, — beyond our sensual dream, 
Its woods, unruffled by the wild wind's roar: 
Yet does the turbulent surge 
Howl on its very verge. 
One moment, — and we breathe within 
The Evermore. 

"They whom we loved and lost so long ago, 
Dwell in those cities, far from mortal woe ; 

Haunt those fresh woodlands, whence sweet car- 
ollings soar. 



The Glory Beyond. 



271 



Eternal peace have they : 
God wipes their tears away: 
They drink that river of life which flows 
For Evermore. 

"Thither we hasten through these regions dim. 
But lo ! the wide wings of the seraphim 
Shine in the sunset! On that joyous shore 
Our lightened hearts shall know 
The life of long ago; — 
The sorrow-burdened past shall fade 
For Evermore." 



272 Breathiitgs of the Better Life. 

" While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the 
things which are not seen." 

2 Corinthians iv. 18. 

True benevolence is not happy in itself; it is 
happy in the felicity of other beings ; and in 
proportion to its strength we shall ardently de- 
sire to attain to a state of existence in which 
we may behold and promote the highest good, 
may grow in goodness, become members of an 
active society warmed with purest benevolence, 
and be entirely devoted to the designs of the 
merciful God. The prospect of eternal life must 
be inconceivably more dear to a benevolent heart 
than to any other being, because this heart is 
fixed on an object so glorious and extensive, 
that it wants an eternity to enjoy and pursue it. 
The good heart naturally allies itself with eter- 
nity. Let it behold a kingdom of endless and 
increasing glory under the government of infi- 
nite love, and let it be invited to press forward 
to this kingdom, and its benevolence will give 
it vigor to pursue the prize. 



The Glory Beyond. 273 



A good man can be quickened only by the 
prospect of a future world in which goodness 
will be exercised and displayed. Jesus will re- 
ward his followers, not by introducing them to 
a paradise of sensual delight, and to bowers of 
undisturbed repose ; but by enlarging their fac- 
ulties, shedding new light into their minds, and 
welcoming them to a state where every excel- 
lence will be confirmed, — where they will behold 
God as a friend face to face, and approach the 
Divine majesty with new affection, — where they 
will accomplish the Divine purposes with increas- 
ing vigor, delight, and success, and receive and 
communicate more happiness in an hour or a 
day than they have done in the whole of their 
lives on earth. Here is an object worth ambi- 
tion. Here is an immortality the thought of 
which should kindle every hope and desire, and 

quicken to the practice of universal piety. 

W. E. Channing. 

18 



274 



Breathings of the Better Life. 



A little longer yet, — a little longer, 

Life shall be thine ; life with its power to will ; 

Life with its strength to bear, to love, to conquer, 
Bringing its thousand joys thy heart to fill. 

A little longer still, — and Heaven awaits thee, 
And fills thy spirit with a great delight; 

Then our pale joys will seem a dream forgotten, 
Our sun a darkness, and our day a night. 

A little longer, and thy heart, beloved, 
Shall beat forever with a love Divine; 

And joy so pure, so mighty, so eternal, 

No creature knows and lives, will then be thine. 

Adelaide A. Procter. 



The Glory Beyond. 



275 



" Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am 
known." 

i Corinthians xiii. 12. 

The desire of knowledge God has planted nat- 
urally in us, as hunger is natural in our bodies, 
or the want of light in our eyes. And the eye 
is not a more certain indication that light is to 
be given, than our desire to know divine things 
is that we shall be permitted to know them. 
And the evidence is yet further increased, in the 
fact that the good have a stronger desire of this 
knowledge than mere nature kindles. It is the 
glory of God, indeed, to conceal a thing, but 
not absolutely, or for the sake of concealment. 
He does it only till a mind and appetite for the 
truth is prepared. He gives us a dim light, 
and sets us prying at the walls of mystery, that 
He may create an appetite and relish in us for 
true knowledge. Then it shall be a joyful and 
glorious gift, — drink to the thirsty, food to the 
hungry, light to the prisoner's cell. And He 
will pour it in from the whole firmament of His 



276 Breathings of the Better Life. 

glory. He will open His secret things, open 
the boundaries of universal order, open His own 
glorious mind and His eternal purposes. 

Precisely what is to be the manner and meas- : 
ure of our knowledge, in this fuller and more* 
glorious revelation of the future, is not clear to- 
us now, for that is one of the dark things, or 
mysteries, of our present state. But the lan- 
guage of Scripture is remarkable. It even de- 
clares that we shall see God as He is ; and the 
intensity of the expression is augmented, if pos- 
sible, by the effects attributed to the sight, — 
we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as 
He is. We shall be so irradiated and pene- 
trated, in other words, by His glory, as to be 
transformed into a spiritual resemblance, par- 
taking His purity, reflecting His beauty, ennor 
bled by His divinity. 

Our present difficulties and hard questions 
will soon be solved and passed by. Even the 
world itself, so difficult to penetrate, so clouded 
with mystery, will become a transparency to us, 



The Glory Beyond. 



277 



through which God's light will pour as the sun 
through the open sky. John knew no better 
way of describing the perfectly luminous state of 
the blessed minds than to say, — and there shall 
be no night there, and they need no candle, nei- 
ther light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth 
them light. They dwell thus in the eternal day- 
light of love and reason ; for they are so let 
into the mind of God, and the glorious myste- 
ries of His nature, that everything is lighted 
up as they come to it, even as the earth and 
its objects by the sun. The Lord God giveth 
them light. 



H. BUSHNELL. 



Who can utter what the pleasures and the peace 

unbroken are, 
Where arise the pearly mansions, shedding silvery 

light afar, 

Festive seats and golden roofs which glitter like the 
evening star? 



278 Breathings of the Better Life. 

There the saints like suns are radiant, like the sun 

at dawn they glow; 
Crowne'd victors after conflict, all their joys together 

flow, 

And secure they count the battles where they fought 
the prostrate foe. 

Putting off their mortal vesture, in their source their 

souls they steep ; 
Truth by actual vision beaming, on its form their 

gaze they keep, 
Drinking from the living Fountain draughts of living 

waters deep. 

There all being is eternal; things that cease have 
ceased to be ; 

All corruption there has perished, there they flour- 
ish strong and free ; 

Thus mortality is swallowed up of life eternally. 

Diverse as their varied labors the rewards to each 
that fall; 

But Love what she loves in others evermore her 

own doth call ; 
Thus the several joy of each becomes the common 

joy of all. 



The Glory Beyond. 



279 



Blessed who the King of Heaven, in his beauty thus 
behold ; 

And beneath His throne, rejoicing see the universe 
unfold, — 

Sun, and moon, and stars, and planets radiant in 
His light unrolled ! 

Christ, the Palm of faithful victors! of that city 

make me free; 
When my warfare shall be ended, to its mansions 

lead Thou me! 
Grant me, with its happy inmates, sharer of Thy 

gifts to be! Peter Damiani. 



280 Breathings of the Better Life. 

" And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for the first heav- 
en and the first earth were passed away." 

Revelation xxi. i. 

Of how many cheap, exquisite joys are these 
five senses the inlets ? and who is he that can 
look upon the beautifal scenes of the morning, 
lying in the freshness of the dew, and the joy- 
ful light of the risen sun, and not be happy ? 
Cannot God create another world many times 
more fair ? and cast over it a mantle of light 
many times more lovely ? and wash it with purer 
dew than ever dropped from the eyelids of the 
morning ? 

From our present establishment of affections, 
what exquisite enjoyment springs, of love, of 
friendship, and of domestic life ! Yet, O what 
scenes of social life I fancy to myself in the set- 
tlements of the blessed ! What new friendships, 
— what urgency of well-doing, — what promo- 
tion of good, — what elevation of the whole 
sphere in which we dwell ! And the Lord God 



The Glory Beyond, 



281 



himself shall walk among us, as He did of old 
in the midst of the garden. His spirit shall 
be in us, and all heaven shall be revealed 
upon us. 

God only knows what great powers He hath 
for creating happiness and joy. That city of 
our God and the Lamb, whose stream was crys- 
tal, whose wall was jasper, and her buildings 
molten gold, whose twelve gates were each a 
silvery pearl, — doth not so far outshine the 
dingy, smoky, clayey dwellings of men, as shall 
that new earth outshine the fairest region which 
the sun hath ever beheld in his circuit since 
the birth of time. 

The harp which the righteous tune in heaven, 
is their heart full of glad and harmonious an- 
thems. The song which they sing, is the knowl- 
edge of things which the soul coveteth after now, 
but faintly perceiveth. The troubled fountain 
of the human understanding hath become clear 
as crystal, — they know even as they are known. 
Wherever they look abroad, they perceive wis- 



282 Breathings of the Better Life, 

dom and glory ; within, they feel order and hap- 
piness ; in every countenance they read benig- 
nity and love. 

E. Irving. 



And His servants shall serve Him ; and they 
shall see His face, and His name shall be in 
their foreheads. 

And there shall be no night there ; and they 
need no candle, neither light of the sun ; for the 
Lord God giveth them light. 

Blessed are they that do His commandments, 
that they may have right to the tree of life, and 
may enter in through the gates into the city. 

Revelation. 



The Glory Beyond. 



283 



O how beautiful that region, 

And how fair that heavenly legion, 

Where thus men and angels blend! 
Glorious will that city be, 
Full of deep tranquillity, 

Light and peace from end to end. 
All the happy dwellers there 

Shine in robes of purity, 

Keep the law of charity, 

Bound in firmest unity. 
Labor finds them not, nor care ; 
Ignorance can ne'er perplex, 
Nothing tempt . them, nothing vex ; 
Joy and health their fadeless blessing, 
Always all good things possessing. 

Thomas A Kempis. 



Breathings of the Better Life. 

Brief life is here our portion, 

Brief sorrow, short-lived care : 
The life that knows no ending, 

The tearless life is there ; 
Reward of grace how wondrous ! 

Short toil, eternal rest! 
O, miracle of mercy, 

That rebels should be blest! 

That we with sin polluted 

Should have our home on high ! 
That we should dwell in mansions 

Beyond the starry sky! 
And now we fight the battle 

And then we wear the crown 
Of full and everlasting 

And ever bright renown ! 

I know not, O I know not 
What social joys are there, — 

What pure, unfading glory, — 
What light beyond compare ; — - 



The Glory Beyond. 



285 



And when I fain would sing them, 

My spirit fails and faints, 
And vainly strives to image 

The assembly of the saints. 

There is the throne of David ; 

And there, from toil released, 
The shout of them that triumph, 

The song of them that feast. 
O Garden free from sorrow ! 

O Plains that know no strife! 
O princely Bowers, all blooming! 

O Realm and Home of life ! 

Saint Bernard. 



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